


Dragon Age (Season 4)

by Nudeviking



Series: Dragon Age [5]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-07
Updated: 2016-01-07
Packaged: 2018-05-12 08:53:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 28,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5660392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nudeviking/pseuds/Nudeviking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Witness the birth of an Inquisition and the responsibilities that follow in this grandiose wordheap!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dragon Age - S04E01 - An Extended Metaphor For Puberty

Lydia Trevelyn woke up in some sort of neon green.  It was foggy as shit and her head felt like slightly reheated death.  She stood, somewhat uncertainly and dusted off her oversized Green Bay Packers sweatshirt and jeans that were two sizes too big and looked around, trying to get a sense of where she was.  It was hard to see anything what with the neon green and the fog, but she could hear something and it seemed to be coming closer.  It was a chittering kind of sound that but her nerves on edge.  Suddenly from the neon green burst a pair of giant spider-like things.  
  
Lydia shouted, "Oh fuck! Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck," and broke into a run.    
  
Why did it have to be fucking spiders?  There was nothing worse than fucking spiders, and these fucking spiders were ridiculously massive and also looked more monstrous.  She scrambled up a mountain but the fucking spiders were right behind her slavering all over the place and looking like they were about three seconds away from spinning the words "SOME PIG" in a fucking spiderweb.  Lydia looked ahead of her and saw a neon green humanoid reaching out a skinny alien arm at her.  With the fucking spiders nearly touching her legs with their goddamn spider limbs, Lydia reached out and touched the neon green humanoid and then collapsed in the snow.  
  
When Lydia came to her hand hurt like hell and had neon green beams coming out of it rather painfully.  Also she was handcuffed in a prison cell.  As she sat there, contemplating precisely what had happened to lead her to this, the door to the cell swung open and two older ladies entered.  One of them, had a pretty nice haircut and the cocksure swagger of a skilled swordswoman, and the scowl of a veteran cop.  The other had a sweet hooded sweatshirt and a disposition to match.  There was some cheering from the studio audience demonstrating that they were familiar with at least one of these two women even if Lydia, herself, was not.  
  
The scowling swordswoman scowled at her and was like, "Have a good rest after blowing up the Temple of Andreste and killing the Lady Pope?"  
  
"What?  What are you talking about?" Lydia asked, "Did I...did I do what you said?"  
  
"Yup.  You totally blew up a building with that crazy neon green shit coming out of your hand and killed the Great Grandmother of the Chanty, High Holy Justine and now there's a big chunk of neon green up in the sky," the scowling swordswoman scowled, "But some people think that maybe your crazy neon green hand blast can fix the neon green shit in the sky, so we're going to go check it out.  Leliana, you should probably get to Command HQ.  I'll take care of this piece of shit Anti-Christ."  
  
The lady in the hooded sweatshirt nodded and was like, "I leave her in your capable hands Cassandra," and then left the room.  
  
The serious swordswoman, who was apparently named Cassandra, a fact that it sounded to Lydia like the studio audience didn't even know, dragged Lydia to her feet and undid her manacles and replaced them with some jute rope.  Lydia wished they'd splurged for hemp rope, since the jute was aggravating her already fucked over hand.  If there was one thing in the world that could make a hand with neon green shit blasting out of it feel worse, it was jute rope.  "Come on, I'm going to take you near one of the smaller chunks of green shit in the sky."  
  
She lead Lydia out of the prison cell.  All around her guys in stupid helmets and ladies with dirty aprons scowled at her.  Some of them muttered rather uncouth oaths under their breath.  Cassandra was like, "All of them want you dead for killing Great Grandmother Justine.  I don't blame them to be totally honest.  Anyway come on.  No funny business."  
  
As Lydia and Cassandra made their way towards the random neon green shit in the air, great chunks of neon green blast fell from the sky, blowing up shit all around them.  Lydia wanted to turn and run, but she was certain that that Cassandra lady would sword chop the shit out of her before she made it 50 meters, so she pressed on.  As the crossed a bridge a great chunk of neon green blast fell, exploding the entire bridge.  Cassandra and Lydia fell on to the frozen river below, and as Lydia stood, somewhat groggily, some sort of ghost ninja appeared from the great chunk of neon green that had exploded.  
  
"Stay behind me!" Cassandra shouted and started sword fighting a ghost ninja, but as she chopped and stabbed, another ghost ninja appeared right next to Lydia.  She noticed a rather worn bigass sword nearby that had probably belonged to a soldier who had been wrecked by some sort of great chunk of neon green blast moments earlier.  He certainly wouldn't need it anymore, so Lydia snatched it up and jumped towards the ghost ninja, and jumped back away from him, and jump towards him once more before swinging rather mightily with the bigass sword.  The ghost ninja's shit was totally ruined and she ran forward to help the scowling swordswoman with the ghost she was battling.  Soon both ghosts were dead again.  
  
"Umm...you're welcome," Lydia said, "That ghost thing probably would have owned you pretty hard if it weren't for me."  
  
But Cassandra just scowled and shouted, "DROP THAT SWORD RIGHT NOW!"  
  


* * *

  
"I said, 'DROP THAT SWORD RIGHT NOW!'"  
  
"No.  I won't make it to that green neon sky hole with you protecting me," Lydia said, "That thing would have killed me if I hadn't grabbed this sword."  
  
Cassandra scowled and began walking down the frozen river, "Just don't cut yourself girl."  
  
"I know how to use a sword!" Lydia shouted as she ran after the scowling swordswoman with the amazing hair.  
  
"Fine whatever.  Come on we need to get up this hill, to help the guys fighting up here."  
  
"Who's fighting?"  
  
"You'll see..."  
  
She and Lydia climbed up the hill to see a bald elf and a cool guy dwarf fighting more ghost ninjas and also some sort of neon green beings.  There was a big neon green sky rip right next to them.  The studio audience went wild as they clearly recognized one of the heroes fighting the forces of evil, but whether it was the dwarf or the elf, Lydia could not say.  She and Cassandra threw themselves into battle chopping the shit out of the neon green beings and the ghost ninjas.  When they were dead, the bald elf snatched Lydia's messed up hand and jammed it into the neon green sky rip.  There was some rumbling in her hand and suddenly the rip was gone.  
  
"Amazing!" Cassandra shouted, "She closed the rip!"  
  
"How...how did I do that?" Lydia asked.  
  
The bald elf was like, "The mark on your hand seems to be connected to these rips so it seems like maybe you'll be able to close the big sky rip too, but its a magic that even I do not fully understand."  
  
"That bald dude is Solas...he saved your ass after you killed the Lady Pope," Cassandra said.  
  
"Thank you sir.  I'm rather fond of living."  
  
Solas smiled at her warmly.  It was a nice change of pace.  Everyone else Lydia had encountered since waking up had been so scowly.  The dwarf stepped forward, "My name is Varric, I'm something of an explorer, storyteller, novelist, and all around awesome dude."  
  
"Good deal.  I like your crossbow."  
  
"Thanks Bianca's a beaut isn't she," the dwarf said.  Lydia thought that he had the look of a guy who used to be a lot happier, but said nothing else about it.  
  
"We need to get you to Command HQ and tell Leilana that your hand has magic power and can close up the neon green sky rips," Cassandra said.  She was still scowling in spite the fact that Lydia's hand was saving the day.  "We'd better hurry up before the Command HQ is overrun with jerkass demons."  
  
So the quartet of heroes headed back to Command HQ, chop-battling all sorts of ghost ninjas and neon green beings who would shoot beams.  Lydia spent a fairly large percentage of the early portion of each battle jumping towards her foe in a fury before chopfucking them into small bits with her bigass sword.  It was a pretty heroic trip up river.  Finally the crew reached Command HQ.  Some stupid piece of shit priest guy was screaming, "She needs to be transported to France so she can hang for her crimes!" but the hooded sweatshirt lady, Leliana, was like, "Dude seriously chill out.  We don't even know what happened yet."  
  
Cassandra swaggered up to Leliana and was like, "Yo B, this girly can totally close those green sky rips with her hand, but it messes her up something fierce.  We're going to take her up to the big one...the one we call The Breach and have her use her hand power on it.  Maybe it will save the day and stop all these neon green beings from sliding into our realm."  
  
"Sounds good Cassandra," Leliana said, "There's a big chunk of enemy forces blocking the way though.  You can either go up through the mountain pass with a small strike force or ride with the army though the valley and fight the shit out of all the foes.  If you go up in the mountains it will be quick, but a lot of nameless dudes will die.  If you go in the valley, it will be a slog and our scouts will die.  What are you going to do Cassandra?"  
  
"I dunno, Lydia what do you think?"  
  
"Me?  You're asking me?  I guess the mountain thing.  I don't want to be in the thick of things to be totally honest."  
  
Cassandra scowled at Lydia and in a menacing fashion, mouthed the words, "Minus five points from Hufflepuff."  
  


* * *

  
The mountain pass was a bunch of ladders and shit.  Varric was going on and on about how weird it was to climb ladders and how someone he knew named Hawk or Hall or something never climbed ladders because she didn't want people to look at her ass.  Lydia tried to ignore him.  She just wanted to get to the Breach sky rip and fix it and then maybe they'd let her go back home, though somehow she doubted they'd just let her go back to her parent's manor house back in Green Bay.  That Cassandra lady seemed pretty hell-bent on hanging her, and she was honestly one of the nicer ones...  
  
After a short while they came across another tiny neon green sky rip and Lydia fisted it while her traveling companions fought it out with some sort of demons.  Eventually the sky rip sealed and the day was saved.  A chunk of scouts were like, "Dudes thanks for the save, we would have totally been goners if not for you."  
  
No one had ever talked to Lydia that way before.  As the youngest child of the Trevelyn family back in Green Bay, most people just told her she was underfoot, or that wrestling wasn't "particularly ladylike," and not to slouchy when she walked, or same "shit."  Is this what pride felt like?  Lydia told the scouts that it was her pleasure to help them and hoped they could get back to camp okay.  Solas nodded approvingly and was like "Mad respect Lydia."  
  
"We've wasted enough time.  We've got a The Breach to close," Cassandra said super scowlingly.  
  
And so the party sent off down the mountain.  There were burned up bodies everywhere.  Lydia felt hella guilty.  Had she really been responsible for all this death and destruction?  Their faces were all totally melted off and junk.  It was hella gross.  She tried not to look as Cassandra lead them into the ruins where the The Breach neon green sky rip was.  It was all huge and neon green and Cassandra was like, "Well...get down there and close it."  
  
"How?  It's all up in the sky," Lydia asked.  
  
"We'll help you find a way child," Solas said gently.  Lydia liked that dude.  He kept her calm.  He reminder her of her kindergarten teacher.  
  
"Okay.  Let's do this."  
  
They set off down some sort or buttress or rampart or portcullis or some sort of castle bullshit while a creepy voice bellowed stuff about the prisoner and secure the prisoner and then Lydia heard her own voice bellowing, "Hullo, what's this?"  Cassandra was like, "Yo what the fuck?  That was your voice!" but Lydia just shrugged.  They walked pass some red lyrium which Varric insisted was pure evil.  "Don't touch it kid...that shit'll mess you up!"  Lydia just nodded because she was too distracted by the creepy voice yelling shit.  
  
Down into the courtyard of the ruined ruins she jumped.  The neon green sky rip known as The Breach started pulsating and they saw the Great Grandmother Justine and some kind of shadow monster and then Lydia saw herself appear and asked, "Hullo, what's this?"  The Great Grandmother yelled, "Run child!" and then the scene vanished.  Cassandra lost her fucking shit.  "YOU WERE THERE!  THE GREAT GRANDMOTHER, DOES SHE LIVE?!"  
  
"I don't know.  I can't remember any of that."  
  
Solas was like, "Guys this rip is already closed, but whoever did it, did a shit job.  We should reopen it and let Lydia reseal it the right way."  
  
"Okay!  Do it girl!" Cassandra shouted, "Guys...get ready...this means....DEMONS!!!!"  
  
A huge demon popped out of the green rip and it was battle time.  They all pounded on the demon, but Lydia realized she probably had to close the rip, so she went and did that while other people chopfucked a demon with swords and crossbows and wizard shit.  The neon green rip exploded a couple times and with each explosion the demon seemed to get more and more whackass.  Finally there was a bigass explosion and the demon vanished, and Lydia collapsed on the cold stone of the ruined ruins.  


* * *

  
Lydia woke up to see an elf bringing a basket of some sort of loot into a room.  The elf seeing Lydia rouse quickly prostrated herself.  "I'm sorry milady, I did not mean to disturb you!"  
  
"Huh?  Oh no, no...it's alright.  Where am I?"  
  
"In Haven milady, they brought you back here after you closed that riff.  It's all anyone's been talking about these past three days."  
  
"Three days?  I've been asleep for three days?!"  
  
"Yes milady.  I was to tell you that the Lady Cassandra wished to see you in the Chantry as soon as you awoke," the elf said and the scurried out of the room.  
  
Lydia sighed, and decided to try to sneak away, but she found her way blocked by people who were all like, "Cassandra wants to see you hero!" so she headed to the Chantry.  People were totally yelling shit about her.  It sounded like that cockmonger priest dude and a couple ladies.  Surprisingly it sounded like Cassandra was sticking up for her.  Lydia walked into the room with all the yelling and Cassandra was like, "Yo dude, people are calling you the Herald of Andreste."  
  
"Herald of Andraste?  That's ridiculous.  I'm just a girl from Green Bay, Wisconsin, and to be totally honest I just want to go home."  
  
"Go home?  Sorry, nothing doing.  The world is on the brink right now," Cassandra said, "And that Hawke lady turned out to be a bust so we need a hero the world can get behind and set things right."  
  
"And you think that's me?"  
  
"You?  Maybe not.  But the Herald of Andraste?  Definitely!" Cassandra scowled.  
  
"You know what I think dudes?" Leliana said, "I think this calls for an Old School Inquisition."  
  
"Hullo, what's an 'Old School Inquisition?'" Lydia asked, somewhat perplexed.  
  
"An Old School Inquisition is like the demo version of the Templars, before the Templars lost their way.  The Old School Inquisition came together to protect the defenseless and bring order to the disorder that plagued the lands," Cassandra said.  
  
"I don't want to be a Herald of Andreste or whatever, but that stuff about protecting the defenseless and bringing order to chaos or whatever sounded pretty good," Lydia said, "So I guess I'm your girl.  Let's do it.  Let's old school inquisition the shit out of Thedas!"  
  
Lydia and Cassandra clasped hand like they were making some sort of secret pact....  
  
  
  
---  
  
**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Director's Commentary: I'm not sure how I feel about this yet.  Thus far I have more complaints than "FUCK YEAS!" about this game but they're all technical shit.  First off I hate that the button I've used to attack for the past 100 someodd hours now makes me jump.  Yes, I know that in a day or two I will be used to this, but it's just such a pointless change I don't know why they did it.  As always, I'm actually a little bit beyond this in terms of plot.  I went into the Hinterlands or something but ended up stopping because I could not figure out how to switch between my party members and thus couldn't activate something I needed a mage to activate (it was also 2:00 in the morning, but that's beside the point).  If this was some entirely new (to me) game I wouldn't care about not knowing what buttons to push, but to suddenly need to look up something that has been done one way for the past two games in the series was kind of annoying.  My other gripe is the load times.  Man those load times...they're insane.  I don't know if this is because for the first time I'm playing off a DVD or Bluray or whatever as opposed to a game downloaded onto a video game machine or because DA:I is about good graphics but the load times are just nuts.  Anyway like I said, it's minor technical stuff more so than actual plot.  Hopefully the story grabs hold of my by the balls and I learn to stop caring about a black screen with a little loading icon in the corner.


	2. Dragon Age - S04E02 - Humble Beginnings

  
With a pre-credit training montage out of the way, The Old School Inquisition was ready to rock.  Lydia had traded in her baggy jeans and Green Bay Packers sweatshirt for some stylish chainmail dress with a pocketbook shaped like a fish or something and some leggings.  She walked out to the training grounds where Cassandra was going apeshit on some sort of wooden training goon.  Cassandra had been a lot nicer to Lydia since they'd shook hands in a fashion that clearly signified forming a pact at the end of the last episode.  
  
As Lydia approached, Cassandra stopped what she was doing.  "You're very impressive," Lydia offered somewhat coquettishly.  
  
"Thank you.  Someone here has to be vigilant and make sure we all stay alive.  Listen, I wanted to apologize for treating you like shit before I was pretty pissed off that the Great Grandmother Justine had died and wanted someone to blame.  It wasn't really fair to you," Cassandra said.  
  
"That's understandable.  You really liked her didn't you?  The Great Grandmother."  
  
"We all did.  She was the highest of high holies and was an inspiration to us all.  Can I ask you something?"  
  
Lydia nodded, "I guess so."  
  
"You said that you're not the Herald of Andreste.  Does that mean you don't believe in the Maker either?"  
  
"I don't really know if I do or not."  
  
"I see.  Anyway there are people who believe in the Herald and you're playing that role nicely so I suppose it doesn't matter what you really believe.  Anyway Leliana wanted to talk to you about some Old School Inquisition shit back in the war room, so I'd go and see her if I were you," Cassandra said and then went back to aping out on the wooden training goon.  
  
Lydia didn't really want to talk to Leliana, since she would undoubtedly ask Lydia more about the Maker or Jesus or something, and Lydia really did not want to have another talk about how she did not show enough deference towards the Chantry or the Maker, she had had enough of such conversations back home with her mother, so she wandered about Haven, talking to the blacksmith and quartermaster and finding a herd of some sort of disgusting animal that looked like a cross between a pig and a rabbit.  
  
Several hours passed before she decided that she probably couldn't put off talking about Jesus any longer and thus went into the war room.  Leliana was there with a dude dressed up like a raven, and a swarthy flapper woman with a cigarette holder and a clipboard.  They were introduced respectively as Cullen and Josephine.  Lydia greeted them with a simple "Hello," and listened as people talked about her like she wasn't there.  
  
"She needs some mages to power up her hand power so she can close The Breach!" Leliana shouted.  
  
Cullen meanwhile was of the mind that the Templars should take care of the closing of the Breach entirely by themselves.  Josephine meanwhile said something about diplomatic relations.  Lydia kind of wanted to scream.  Never in all her 18 years had she ever thought that she'd actually miss living in her overbearing parents' estate.  
  
"Whether its the mages or the Templars who power up the Herald's hand is kind of irrelevant right now," a voice from behind Lydia said.  She turned and saw Cassandra come swaggering into the room.  "The Inquisition isn't really a big deal yet.  A lot of people haven't even heard of us yet, so I think we need to get out there and tour.  You know, play a couple gigs in some dive bars.  Do some side stage shows at some of the bigger festivals...gather a following."  
  
"That's a good idea!  I want to do that one," Lydia said.  
  
"Oh fine, whatever, there's a Mother Claudette or something out in the Hinterlands who's trying to do good deeds to help those who are suffering due to the Mage vs. Templar battle royale that's going on there," Leliana said, "She's an old friend and I believe could be persuaded to join our cause.  Why not help her?  She has some clout with other Chantry types, and if you help Hinterlanders maybe some of them will join up with us."  
  
"Alright!" Lydia said and then gathered her companions, as they were, and headed into the Hinterlands.  
  
 **COMMERCIAL BREAK!**  
  
"It's a pleasure to meet you Herald!" the lady dwarf scout before them said, "The name's Harding, and I'm a scout for the Inquisition.  I've scoped out the scene down there and it's kind of a bad scene.  There are mages and templars wailing the shit out of each other, so be careful down there."  
  
"Harding eh?  Have you ever been to Kirkwall Harding?" Varric began, "Because then you'd be Harding in High...you know what?  Forget I said anything.  God that was such a Lame Dad Joke® brand dad joke."  
  
"Whatever mang, we've got mages to punch and Templars to chop up!" Lydia said as she stuffed some potions into her fish shaped pocketbook, "Thanks for the hot tip Harding.  Take care of yourself."  
  
"You too Herald."  
  
Lydia and her posse rolled down the mountain and right into some sort of mage vs. templar fistfight.  The mages, in spite Lydia yelling, "Dudes, we are totally not the Templars!" tried to blast the shit out of her party and thus were chopped up into tiny little pieces.  Lydia assumed with the mages dead there would be a moment of peace, but as soon as they'd been chopped up, a crew of Templars came running up on them.  Again Lydia tried to reason with them, shouting, "Guys!  We are totally not apostates!"  
  
"I actually am an apostate, Child," Solas said.  
  
"Oh dude, sorry I didn't know.  I thought that since you were working with Cassandra and that Cullen dude that you were a Circle mage or something," Lydia replied, "Man, I feel like an asshole..."  
  
"No, no, it's quite alright Child," Solas said as he blasted some Templars.  
  
"I won't tell anyone.  I promise," Lydia said and then chopped a Templar with a giant shield into a heap of meat.  
  
With the mage vs. Templar threat thoroughly turned into meat heaps, a bunch of dirt farmers emerged from their hiding holes and a black French lady nun appeared.  She seemed to know who Lydia was, so Lydia could only assume that she was Mother Claudette or whatever.  "'Allo 'Erald.  It iz so good to finally meet you.  I have 'eard much of ze Inquizition form Leliana and would like to 'elp but I am afraid zeese poor refuges will be at a loss without me."  
  
"I suppose my friends and I could do heroics and help these people," Lydia said.  
  
"Oh 'ow wonderful!  I shall depart for 'aven at once then.  Maker bless you 'erald!"  
  
In spite the fact that she was super religious, Lydia liked Mother Claudette or Whatever Her Name Was.  She wasn't like that douchelord clerk guy who always wanted to hang Lydia for a crime that she did not commit.  She was kind and seemingly cared about the less fortunate.  Lydia wasn't too keen on being the "Herald" or whatever, but if she could do some good for the dirt farmers and the elves and the disgraced nobles of Thedas by pretending to be the second coming of Christ, then she'd do it!  
  
 **COMMERCIAL BREAK!**  
  
After chatting with a bunch of people in the refuge camp it became clear that there were a bunch of tasks that Lydia could undertake to make life better for the people there.  Dudes needed blankets and meat heaps and medicine and there were banditos lurking nearby.  Lydia figured that the banditos were probably the biggest problem, since with the banditos lurking nearby dudes couldn't go hunting for meat heaps or walk up the road to Bed, Bath & Beyond to purchase duvet covers and 800 Thread Count Egyptian Cotton sheets.  
  
The banditos were pretty conspicuous on the road and as Lydia, Solas, and Varric sneaked closer to them, Cassandra screamed, "BANDITOS AHEAD!!!" at the top of her lungs.  The banditos were all like, "Wuts this?" and grabbed their bows and refugee choppers and rushed into combat with Lydia and her crew.  Lydia hopped like a frog as one bandito tried to knife her.  "Stand still bitch!" shouted the bandito.  
  
"WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?!" Lydia shouted and stopped hopping.  She swung her bigass sword mightily and chopped the utter shit out of the foul mouthed bandito before he had a chance to reply.  
  
The banditos were soon a heap of bandito meat all over the ground in the Hinterlands, but it seemed to Lydia that the fighting was not yet done, since in the distance she saw a lady elf fighting a demon.  "We gotta help that lady elf!" Lydia shouted, "That's what Inquisitions do...maybe!  I don't really know!"  Regardless of her ignorance of what she was actually supposed to be doing, Lydia ran to the aid of the lady elf and chopped up some demons.  
  
"Thank you," the lady elf said, "It seems you and I both hate demons."  
  
"Are you a demon hunter?" Lydia asked.  
  
"No, just a lady elf.  I was here looking for an elf artifact, but there were a lot of demons.  Maybe we could team up?"  
  
"Okay.  Let's go."  
  
The lady elf joined the party, temporarily companion style as they ventured into some sort of elf ruins.  Solas got a torch of green magic fire and then they went into the basement and fought some demons.  Lydia killed the shit out of them and then the elf lady was like, "I found my thing.  I guess our team up is done."  
  
Lydia replied, "Okay cool.  Solas?"    
  
Solas said some stuff to the elf lady in Danish and then the lady gave Solas some sort of necklace or unit chunk, but when Solas equipped it, it totally disappeared!  Somewhat disappointed by the vanishing elf relic necklace, the party headed out of the ruins.  Cassandra tried to put a positive spin on the entire thing, "We at least got some fame points or something by helping that lady.  Maybe she'll tell all her elf friends how good the Old School Inquisition is."  
  
"Yeah maybe," Solas said as he kicked a rock, "I really wanted that necklace though."  
  
"Don't worry Solas, we'll find another necklace for you.  A better necklace.  Here why not take this random staff we found.  It's slightly better than the one you're using now," Lydia said trying to make Solas feel better.  
  
"Thank you Child you are too kind.  I am a very lucky..." but Solas words were cut short by a terrible ear shattering cry that filled the Hinterlands and drove all who heard it to the brink of madness.  
  
 **To Be Continued...**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Director's Commentary: A couple hours in and I still don't know if I actually like this game or not. More technical issues are bugging the shit out of me. Attempting to talk to dudes outside of Haven is glitchy and super annoying. Inside Haven it's fine: Press X and have Varric get angry at me...no problem, but out in the Hinterlands the dialogue wheel pops up when I hit X but I can't do anything so I have to swing a sword mightily to make the dialogue wheel disappear and then attempt to have the conversation again. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't so I might spend a minute or two swinging my sword to try and talk to some dude to finish a quest. I know at some point because of this I will badly fuck up some sort of dialogue which is kind of annoying. Also I got some sort of Deluxe Edition, because that's what they had for sale in the store here. There was some kind of code for a flaming sword or something that I input because why wouldn't I want a goddamn flaming sword? Anyway it's supposedly in some chest in Haven that I can see, but totally cannot open, which again, is kind of annoying.


	3. Dragon Age - S04E03 - Nun Punching 101

Neon green beams shot out of Lydia's fist into the neon green sky rip before her. All around her the sounds of her friends battling neon green beings could be heard, but Lydia focused on the task at hand, namely doing something that would increase her prestige ever so slightly so the Inquisition bosses would send her to France. The neon green sky rip exploded in a blast of neon green that sent a single belt crashing to the ground. Lydia picked up the belt and clasped it around her waist. It seemed like a pretty nice belt.  
  
"Herald, it seems like you are pretty mighty," Cassandra said as she wiped neon green goo off her sword, "We should return to Haven and talk to the bosses about taking a trip to France."  
  
Lydia nodded, "Okay, but please stop calling me Herald. It makes me hella nervous. Like if this whole Old School Inquisition thing goes bust who do you think will be the first one burned alive for being a heretic? The so-called Herald of Andreste that's who. So really, please just cool it with that shit. You can call me Lydia...Lady Trevelyn if you're nasty."  
  
Cassandra sighed and said, "Alright Lydia...let's go back to Haven posthaste."  
  
One incredibly uneventful journey back to Haven later, Lydia found herself in her war room.  She'd changed into her pajamas before the war room pow-wow and Cassandra was giving her dirty looks about it.  "What?" Lydia asked, "We'd been sleeping in tents and eating Slim Jims for like a week.  I figured I'd make myself comfortable while we're here."  
  
"Is anyone else wearing pajamas Heral...I mean Lydia?" Cassandra asked, barely masking the contempt in her voice.  
  
"It looks like Cullen's got a bathrobe on," Lydia replied.  
  
Cassandra sighed and muttered, "Never mind," as Leliana strolled into the war room and the pow-wow commenced in earnest.  
  
"So the Old School Inquisition is going pretty good.  We've got some name brand recognition now, so I think we should go to France and talk to the Chantry people that Mother Claudette recommended," Leliana said.  
  
"I think it would be a good idea if the Herald herself were to go," Josephine said, as she took a drag from her cigarette holder and glanced at some statistics on her clipboard, "I could bring an influx of supporters if she, herself were to go and chat up some of the nobles."  
  
"No way mang!" Cullen declared, his bathrobe becoming dangerously loose, "It could be a trap!  What if they trap the Herald and torture her and then the Inquisition is ruined before it even really gets started."  
  
"Dude!  Do you not see my bigass sword?  I can pretty much take care of myself!" Lydia shouted at Cullen.  
  
"I will go with the Herald," Cassandra said, "We will just be having a chat with the Chantry mothers that Mother Claudette recommended.  I doubt anyone in France even knows who we are yet."  
  
"Alright then.  Go check out the scene in France," Leliana said, "But for fuck's sake be careful.  People in France play a dangerous game."  
  
Lydia went slack-jawed and she asked, "Surely you don't mean Trouble...with the Pop-a-matic bubble?"  
  
 **COMMERCIAL BREAK!**  
  
  
Lydia, Cassandra, Varric and Solas disembarked from their ship in the Port of Orleans.  Lydia was surprised at how clean the city was.  It was far cleaner than any place she'd visited in the Free Marches or even Feldspar.  As they walked towards the market place, a lady soldier appeared and whispered the secret Old School Inquisition greeting of "YO INQUISITION!!!!"  Cassandra greeted her in kind and asked what the word on the street was.  The word on the street was a big anti-Inquisition rally in the market place hosted by the Chantry and the Tea Party of Orleans.  
  
"C'mon," Lydia said, "Let's go bust some heads in the market place!"  
  
"Umm...how about we just go and listen?" Cassandra offered, "They probably don't even know who you are."  
  
Lydia had to admit that not busting skulls was probably the safer option if people truly didn't recognize her, but as they made their way towards the market place it became very clear that the Inquisition or perhaps just Lydia, herself, were better known than Cassandra had assumed.  A couple ladies in Queen Amidala cosplay spied Lydia and shrieked in terror.  
  
  
 _Citizen of Orleans_  
  
"I guess they know who I am," Lydia said, as the cosplayers ran off.  
  
"Maybe they just think you have shitty hair and really ugly clothes?" Cassandra offered.  
  
But as they approached the Tea Party rally against the Inquisition it became clear that this was not the case...or it might have been the case, but people in Orleans knew Lydia's face in addition to thinking she had stupid hair and ugly clothes, as the two things were not mutually exclusive, for up on a stage in the middle of the marketplace, a French nun was going on and on about how the Hearld of Andreste was a shitty heretic who probably murdered the Great Grandmother and then capped off her big speech by pointing out Lydia in the crowd.  
  
"Look!  I never said I was the Herald of Andreste or that I was sent here by the Maker," Lydia shouted, "I just want to close the goddamn Breach!  That shit threatens us all.  I give precisely zero fucks about the Chantry or the Inquisition or anything like that."  
  
At that moment a crewpack of Templars strolled up onto the stage like a crewpack of bosses.  The French nun was like, "Look at diz, de Templarz 'ave returned to de chantree..." but some fucking Templar punched her in the fucking face and knocked her out.  
  
"Was that suppose to impress me?  The fact that you can punch an old woman in the face?"  
  
"It wasn't about you Heretic!" spat the lead Templar and then he and his crew swaggered away.  
  
Cassandra seemed to recognize the guy and was all like, "Yo Lord Seeker, we need to talk to you!" but the Lord Seeker was like, "You will not talk to me skank!  You started some heretical team and are propping up the false prophet as some sort of Herald of Andreste.  Fuck you, it's bullshit."  
  
Lydia was like, "Dude get your fucking head out of your ass.  We just want to close the Breach, so are the Templars gonna help or what?"  
  
"Scoff.  The Inquisition has done nothing to impress me thus far, and you 'Herald,' have done even less," Lord Seeker said in a scowling manner that put Cassandra's rather masterful scowl to shame, "You know what?  Fuck this whole city.  Templars!!! ROLL OUT!  THIS CITY IS NOT WORTHY OF OUR PROTECTION!"  
  
And with that the Templars left Orleans.  
  
 **COMMERCIAL BREAK!**  
  
 _Never forget what time it is ever again..._  
  
"Well, that was a huge waste of time.  I guess we'll find some other people to help us out.  Fuck the Templars," Lydia said.  
  
"You shouldn't be so hasty Cassandra said, perhaps there are ways to get the Templars to join our cause."  
  
"You're joking right?  He pretty much called us both cunts and you still want to work with him?  Fuck that guy and the Templars!" Lydia exclaimed.  
  
Cassandra sighed, "Alright, the Lord Seeker's kind of a cock, but there are alright Templars.  Cullen's not so bad..."  
  
But before Lydia could reply and arrow streaked down into the courtyard.  There was something attached to it.  It was a note.  "Hi, there's a creep that we gotta stop and then maybe we can talk about inquisiting together.  But before we can do that you gotta find some red stuff because Sesame Street.  You can find some red shit in the Cafe, at the Docks, and in the Market.  Bring swords!"  The note was written in a large loopy girl-font with hearts dotting the i's and a little drawings of cats and dragons in the margins.  
  
"What is it?!" Cassandra demanded, "Assassins?!"  
  
Lydia shrugged, "I don't think it's assassins, but I don't really know what it is.  It looks like some sort of treasure hunt or something.  Let's check it out.  They seem to want to help the Inquisition, and frankly we can use all the help we can get!"  
  
As Lydia and Co. set off toward the cafe they were confronted by an elf lady that Cassandra recognized as Fiona, Bossmage of the Rebel Mages.  Fiona and Cassandra had some back and forth about why she wasn't at the Mage vs. Templar peace summit, but she was like, "Yo, thought it was a trap...no biggie.  That Lord Seeker douchenozzle wasn't there either.  Anyway we mages might be willing to team up with you and wreck house on the Breach.  Come chat with us about it later.  Smells ya later guys," and then she walked away.  
  
"Hey Varric, do you think if we help her, she'll randomly turn into a giant Tuna Helper Wizard and try to kill us for no reason like Othello did?" Lydia asked the sad sack dwarf.  
  
"Shut up, I told you I don't know why he did that...I guess he felt like it was hopeless," Varric spat, "Minus 5 points from Hufflepuff!!!"  
  
Lydia merely shrugged and set off on her scavenger hunt, locating things that were red.  With a heap of red stuff gathered she noticed directions to some sort of manor house spread out across the random red units she found.  That night, under cover of night, after night had fallen she and her friends set off to the night darkened manor house.  Some guards were lying in wait and ambushed Lydia and her friends, but Lydia screamed mightily and swung her bigass sword like a motherfucking champ and cleaved a bunch of skulls and soon the guards were all totally wrecked.  
  
Some sort of dumbass in a shitty mask was like, "Oh hoh hoh hoh...I see ze great Inquizitor haz decided to come and try and stop me 'erself...hoh hoh hoh.  I am so important."  
  
"Dude I have no idea who you are.  I was just doing some scavenger hunt and the clues lead me here," Lydia said.  
  
"Impossibleu!!!"  
  
  
  
A young elf lady with bondage pants and a killer haircut suddenly appeared and when the stupid mask guy said, "What," she shot him in the neck.  
  
"Oi.  You're the Herald?  Kinda plain really.  I expected someone more glowy.  Anyway the name's Sara and I'm here to help you with the breeches.  Got a head start and stole a bunch of these blokes breeches.  They're probably not to keen on being pantless, but what are you gonna do?"  
  
Suddenly a dozen pantless guardsmen ran out of somewhere swinging maces and hammers with reckless abandon.  "Why didn't you steal their weapons?" Lydia asked.  
  
"Cuz you need help with the breeches don't cha?  None of you blokes said nuttin' 'bout no weapons..." Sara the elf said as she shot a pantless guard in the cock.  The guards were soon all rendered useless (apparently guards without pants do not fight very well) and Sara the elf got up in Lydia's face, "So can me and my people join your Inquisition?"  
  
"Your people?  You mean elves?" Lydia asked.  
  
"No ya git, I mean people people," Sara the elf said, "You know sometimes you noble types are up here and then there's like middle managers and mini-bosses somewhere 'round here, ya know all in the middle like, and then at the bottom down about here, there are the people people.  Just people people ya know?"  
  
"So you're spies?" Lydia asked, having no idea what was going on.  
  
"You noble blokes taking about your spies and your knifey spoony, but it wasn't no cloak & dagger shite that found this tosser over here.  Just a houseboy who knew a bad bloke when he saw one.  That's what we are.  The Friends of Red Jenny.  Just people people...there's a couple in Kirkwall, and one of us in Denerim...three in Starkhaven...brothers or something.  You know, just regular people type people.  No one ever notices people people."  
  
"Okay..." Lydia said and then quickly changed the topic, "What did you mean when you said you thought I'd glow?"  
  
"That's what you do isn't it?  Your type always glows...that's what they all say anyway."  
  
"The people people?"  
  
"The people people.  So how 'bout it?  Can I join your gang?  I'm pretty good with a bow."  
  
"I guess so..." Lydia said, still totally confused about what was going on.  
  
Sara the elf did a fist pump of triumph and was like, "Yes!  This is going to be bloody brilliant!"  
  
 **TO BE CONTINUED!**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Director's Commentary: I've adapted to the goofy controller changes, and pretty much given up on the DLC weapon pack I was supposed to get, so I can finally enjoy the game.  Honestly it's a little overwhelming how huge everything is, especially coming on the heels of DA2 which was so small that it was kind of cluttered.  This seems more in the vein of Skyrim, where I'd set off to do one thing and end up getting sidetracked by like 90 other things.  Last night to earn the power I needed to go to Orleans, I sent out to hunt rams for ram meats, but while following the herd ended up closing a green rift and establishing some Inquisition camp and finding some sort of treasure hold and thus got the power I needed before I even finished the quest I was trying to actually do.  Anyway after some initial misgivings I'm digging DA:I.   Except Varric.  He's a sad sack right now and passive aggressively giving me metagame replies when asked why the end of DA2 was lame, so he's benched for the drunk elf in bondage pants with a longbow.  This is subject to change depending on who else joins the inquisition in the days to come.


	4. Dragon Age - S04E04 - New Friend Request

Lydia had not event wanted to go to this stupid party, and now she had an acute feeling that she was woefully underdressed. The least Leliana could have done was tell her, "Yo, you might want to get yourself a creepy Eyes Wide Shut orgy mask before you go that party to do recruitment for us," but nope, not even that...and she was from France, she knew how those people were.  It was just, "The First Enchanter of France invited you to a party at her estate...you should totally go...if you can convince her to join the Inquisition it will be great.  Dress code?  Just casual.  We'll speak again later."  
  
"Just casual..." Lydia thought to herself as she sipped Champagne and hoped no one noticed the blood splatter all over her Defender Coat.  It was no wonder people were staring at her like she was some sort of not-orc. This was probably Leliana's way of getting back at Lydia for telling people she wasn't really the Herald of Andraste, just some random lesser noblewoman who happened to survive a blast of neon green.  It was like Aunt Lucy's annual spring fling gala all over again.  Lydia's recollection of her awkward youth were interrupted by someone with a French accent calling out, "'Erald!  'Erald!"  
  
"You stupid girl...do you really think you are the 'Erald of Andreste?" some asshole in an Eyes Wide Shut brand orgy mask and Vega's costume from Street Fighter II asked as he descended a staircase.  
  
  
This asshole...  
  
"I never said I was the Herald of Andreste.  In fact I have done nothing but deny being the Herald of Andreste since I came out of the blast of neon green," Lydia said.  
  
"I does not matter," said the asshole nobleman, "'Ave you seen what you are wearing?  That alone is reason to duel, and I Miss 'Erald demand a duel.  If you have the, how do say, balls to face me, come out said and we shall settle this like hommes!"  
  
"Um...I'm not a man, and thus lack balls, but whatever dude I'll duel the shit out of you," Lydia said, but before she had a chance to chopfuck the annoying nobleman to death with her bigass sword, he turned into a block of ice.  Behind him, a lady with a really cool hat was coming down the stairs.  She had an awesome David Bowie suit on and, as this was a party in France, an Eyes Wide Shut brand orgy mask.  
  
"Tisk tisk tisk...tut tut tut.  Lord Vega, I cannot believe that you would be so rude to my guest at my party in my house.  It's because you suck ass and couldn't get into the joust isn't it?  So you figure you'll come her in your stupid pants and try to duel the Herald and try to regain some semblance of your manhood and then maybe your wife will stop making you wear a sad polo shirt while she sleeps with your servants in your own bedchamber."  
  
Lord Vega couldn't say anything since he was totally frozen, but the lady in the mask was like, "Herald, what should I do with this piece of shit?"  
  
Lydia shrugged, "I don't really care what you do with him.  He's not worth my time."  
  
"Okay," the lady said and then did some magic shit on the guy, but as she, herself, was not a wizard, Lydia couldn't tell if the magic shit that was done revived the dude or killed him dead.  The magic shit done, the lady was like, "I am the First Enchanter and Big Mage Boss here in France.  My name is Vivian and I would like to speak with you in private, Herald."  
  
Some time after the party, Lydia found herself alone in a hallway with Vivian the Wizard.  She was not at all unattractive and her hat was really cool, but something about her made Lydia uneasy.  Maybe it was the fact that she had not two hours earlier frozen a dude and then offered to kill him for acting like a douchelord.  Vivian was all like, "Thanks for coming to my party.  Are you really the Herald of Andraste?"  
  
Lydia shrugged, "I don't know.  I don't really feel like a Herald of Andreste."  
  
"So if you're not really the Herald why are you even involved in this Inquisition?" Vivian asked.  
  
"Because I'm tired of all this bullshit fighting and want a Warren G. Hardingesque return to normalcy for Thedas," Lydia replied.  
  
Vivian then said, "Okay sounds good.  That's pretty much what I want too, can I join you?"  
  
"Sure."  
  
 **COMMERCIAL BREAK!**  
  
Several days later Lydia was back in Haven.  She'd been in a small council meeting, and as always had kind of dozed off while Cullen and Josephine bickered about whether to send soldiers of diplomats to obtain bees for some sort of jar with angry bees in it weapon of mass destruction, because she soon realized that she was all alone in small council chamber.  The action figures on the table were all knocked over from where she had apparently fallen asleep, so she hoped they were too critical.  As she made her way out of the Chantry she was intercepted by a lady with a pretty extreme undercut fade.  
  
"I've got a message for the Herald and need to speak with her," the lady said.  
  
"I'm the one they're calling the Herald," Lydia said, "What's the message?"  
  
"Iron Bull and the Chargers are kind of interested in offering you their services and have arranged a little demonstration down on the Storm Coast.  Come check it out if you want to see the most hardcore, extreme balla deluxe mercenary company in all of Thedas," said the lady with the extreme undercut fade and then she headed back into the wilds.  
  
That night at dinner, Lydia mentioned the lady with the undercut fade to Cassandra.  Cassandra was pretty pumped up and was like, "We should totally go check this Iron Bull and the Chargers out.  Maybe we can get them to open for us on our world tour if they're any good.  We should head for the Storm Coast first thing in the morning."  
  
Lydia agreed but thinking about all the crap she still had to do in the Hinterlands kind of resent Cassandra's insistence that they drop everything and head to the Storm Coast to watch mercenaries do whatever it is that mercenaries do.  The people of the Hinterlands were still suffering.  Those people at the crossroads were still hungry because she hadn't hunted rams for them yet.  And they were still cold because she hadn't found any blankets yet.  And they were still asthmatic because she hadn't procured inhalers yet, but apparently that would all have to wait.  
  
The next morning Lydia, Cassandra, Vivian and Sara set off for the Storm Coast.  The weather at the Storm Coast was shit.  It was rainy and gross and everyone was pissed off about it, save for Sara who had taken to wearing a ridiculously foppish hat that in addition to looking ridiculously foppish served to keep the rain off her better than Vivian's really cool hat or the shitty helmets that Cassandra and Lydia wore.  
  
"Let's find this Iron Bull and get out of here," Lydia said as she and her companions headed down to the beach from their camp, but at the shore they did not find a bull, iron or otherwise, they saw a dragon and some sort of big guy getting into a fist fight.  
  
"Let's watch this!" Sara ejaculated.  
  
Sara's enthusiasm was contagious, so Lydia watched a big guy punching a dragon, but once the dragon flew off and the big guy started wandering down the beach toward where they were hiding, Sara's enthusiasm for watching kaiju punch the shit out of stuff waned and she was ready to go find some mercenaries.  They were nearby on the beach battling some kind of enemy forces and totally wrecking house on them.  It was really impressive to see.  The mercenary leader was a huge Qunari dude with a hella tiny head and he was wrecking the most house of all.  Chopfucking the shit out of some bozos with his mighty axe.  Soon there  was just a heap of corpses on the beach.  
  
"Status report Kreme!" the huge Qunari dude shouted once the battle was done.  
  
"Couple of stubbed toes...one hangnail.  Other than that nothing to report sir."  
  
"Good, good.  Have the throat cutters do what they do and then bust open some kegs for the boys," the Qunari said.  He then addressed Lydia, "You must be the Herald, I'm the Iron Bull and these are my Chargers.  I want to offer you our services."  
  
Lydia shrugged, "I dunno man, you guys are probably pretty expensive.  I'm not even sure we could afford you."  
  
"Kreme will talk to your master of coin, Miss Josephine about payment.  Don't worry about that.  There's always gold to be had.  Honestly I'm more interested in you and joining you personally.  The Chargers can pretty much run themselves at this point to be totally honest with you bud."  
  
"Me?  What for?"  
  
"You know about the Ben Shaveoff?"  
  
"Nope."  
  
"I suppose that makes sense.  You weren't around last season during the Mark of the Assassin episodes..." Iron Bull said, "Anyway the Ben Shaveoffs are spies...well that's kind of a really simple way of putting it.  We gather information for the Qun and send it home.  I'm one, and I need to see what you're up to."  
  
"So you want to spy on me?"  
  
"I want to let the Qunari know what you're doing so they won't panic and launch an invasion.  Anyway listen...hey don't walk away yet...I also get information from other agents and from the Qunari HQ (the Q is for Qunari)," the Iron Bull continued, "I'm sure some of this intel would be beneficial to you and your Inquisition.  So what do you say?"  
  
"Oh alright.  If you weren't so charming I would leave you here in this shitty whether.  Are you sure you're not a tall dwarf with a sweet viking helmet?  I've never actually met a Qunari who I didn't want to strangle five minutes after I met them."  
  
The Iron Bull just laughed and called out to Kreme, "Yo Kreme have the boys turn those drinks into road beers...we're headed to Haven!"  
  
"Road beers?!" Kreme, the lady with the extreme undercut fade, boggled, "But sir, how can we possibly drink road beers when we've got hella shit to move?"  
  
"You're a Davinter, I'm sure you'll figure something out."  
  
 **COMMERCIAL BREAK!**  
  
"We've gotten word that all the Grey Wardens have totally disappeared," Leliana said as Lydia stared at her bleary-eyed.  It was too early for this shit.  She and her companions had gotten back to Haven late the night before with Iron Bull and his Chargers and Lydia hadn't even finished her coffee before Leliana was starting in on her with more Inquisition bullshit.  
  
"Perhaps the Wardens had something to do with that neon green shit in the sky," Lydia found herself suggesting.  
  
"I should hope not!" Leliana replied, barely masking the offense in her voice.  Lydia had heard the rumors around camp that Leliana's ladylove was none other than perhaps the most famous Grey Warden ever, Odette Corvette, the so-called Hero of Feldspar.  If such idle rumors were, in fact, true, her offense was understandable.  "Anyway, there's rumors of a Grey Warden named Blackwall chillin' out in the Hinterlands.  I'd like you to go and speak with him.  See if you can find out where the Wardens have gone and if they know anything about the Breach."  
  
"Alright, alright.  Just let me finish this goddamn coffee.  Jesus!" Lydia said.  
  
Leliana stormed off, past Sara.  The elf sat down at the table across from Lydia and helped herself to the karaf of coffee on the table.  "The bloody hell was all that about?" she asked as she poured herself a mug of coffee, "Red's a bit mental yeah?"  
  
"She's in a big rush for me to go back out into the Hinterlands to find 'the last Grey Warden' and ask him where all the other Grey Wardens went," Lydia said, "I told her I'd do it, but it was going to be after breakfast and then she got all huffy."  
  
"You think those rumors are true then yeah?" Sara said, "'Bout Red and the Hero of Feldspar?  I hear they fancied each other and that she and the Hero were snoggin' when the Hero killed that Demon thing.  I know if someone I fancied just up and disappeared I'd be a bit mental too right?"  
  
"I guess so.  You want to come with me when I go look for this dude?"  
  
"I dunno.  Might be good for a larf yeah?" Sara said.  
  
A short while later, Lydia, Sara, Vivian and the Iron Bull were trekking through the Hinterlands looking for signs of a Grey Warden named Blackwall.  Thus far, they'd had little luck.  They'd rustled up some more ram meat and found some inhalers for asthmatics and killed a bunch of banditos and basically made life slightly better for those poor souls who called the Hinterlands home, but seen neither hide nor hair of the dude, until Lydia accidentally fell in a lake.  It was really deep, but before she fell in an almost drowned she saw a farmhouse that looked like the perfect place for the last Grey Warden to hang out in.  
  
After receiving mouth to mouth resuscitation from Sara (who apparently volunteered to perform it) and no longer being almost dead, Lydia lead her crew around the lake (since attempting to swim across was not a particularly brilliant idea) and found a dude with a lot of hair training some dudes how to use axes and shields.  "Don't hide behind it, block with it.  There ya go.  Good work Kevin."  
  
"Blackwall!  Blackwall the Grey Warden?" Lydia asked.  
  
"Yes.  I'm Blackwall the Grey Warden, but you don't look like a farmer what do you want with me?  OH SHIT IT'S BANDITOS!  C'MON BOYS!!! SHOW 'EM WHAT I TAUGHT YA!"  
  
There was a random fight to the death during which Lydia & her crew and Blackwall & his crew teamed up and wrecked house on banditos.  The banditos didn't even know what hit 'em before they were totally dead.  After the fight Blackwall was like, "Dudes, you guys believed in yourself and that's why you could wreck house on banditos...you didn't need me or this lesbian warlord or that Qunari or that elf.  If you believe in yourself you can do great things!"  It was a pretty good speech and Lydia was sure that those guys would go out there and win the big game for some character who died back in Act I of the movie she'd just stumbled into.  
  
The dudes were like, "C'mon guys!  Let's win the big game for Blackwall!" and then headed off and Blackwall was like, "Yo, you never said who you were or what you wanted."  
  
"The name's Lydia, some jokers call me the Herald of Andraste.  I wanted to know why the Grey Wardens are all gone now, did you make that sky hole and that's why you guys are in hiding, and why are you now training farmers to play three on three basketball or whatever."  
  
Blackwall sighed, "Wow that's a pretty succinct plot dump, so here we go.  First off, I don't know where the other wardens are.  It's been 10 years since the blight stopped so we haven't really had much to do.  I assume some of us went back to the HQ back in Weisshaupte.  Others probably are doing freelance work to make ends meet.  Without darkspawn to battle, things get pretty lean for us Wardens.  As for the sky hole?  We have nothing to do with it, but want to find out what happened too.  And the other thing?  Kill banditos for a man he'll be bandito free for a day...teach a man to kill banditos and he'll be bandito free for a lifetime."  
  
"Cool.  So, you've got nothing to do, but you know about fighting an unknowable foe.  We could use your help dude.  What do you say?  Blackwall and Lydia teaming up to make things right in Thedas?  That's kind of the Grey Wardens' deal when you think about it."  
  
"Alright.  I'm in!  Let's do this!" Blackwall shouted, and thus Lydia's fellowship grew to eight.  
  
 **TO BE CONTINUED!  
**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Director's Commentary: If I have one enduring complaint about this game its that it's hard to do these write-ups in the style that I've pretty much used thus far.  I did so much stuff, but a lot of it is stuff that would be one sentence long here and otherwise unconnected to anything else I end up doing and then the big plot chunk stuff is stuff that takes 4 minutes.  I spent more time walking to where Blackwall was than I did actually doing the Blackwell joins the inquisition plot chunk.  Again not a complaint of the game since the walk to Blackwall was not uneventful it was all just a lot of side plot nonsense that is thematically unimportant.
> 
> On to more pressing matters...Warriors.  For the first time in this series I have not one, not two, but three warrior companions that I do not loath.  Iron Bull seems like a cool dude, even if his head is way too small for his body.  Blackwall is this game's Anders...not in that he's the one I think that's going to blow up a church, but because I end up flirting with him because the flirting dialogue is the best choice.  Even Cassandra who I got off to a rocky start with has redeemed herself somewhat even if she on occasion becomes "slightly disappointed" when I load the game.  I'm assuming it's because of some sort of Josephine does diplomacy on a map quest and not a bug since it pops up in the same chunk as "Cullen is back from some kind of mission!" "Leliana is back from some kind of mission!" "Cassandra is slightly disappointed!" but who knows.  Anyway Bull's probably getting benched since he, unfortunately overlaps the most closely with my Inquisitor, but this is a benching I make grudgingly.
> 
> This weekend I also discovered the best feature to be added to DAI: the ability to ask your companions what they think about other companions.  I don't know if this is something all companions can do or not (thus far I've only been able to ask Josephine and Sara about the other people in camp), but I think it adds to realism of the game having the other characters like and dislike other party members.


	5. Dragon Age - S04E05 - The Road To Redcliffe

Josephine looked up from her clipboard and said, "Lydia, I'd like to talk to your parents."  
  
Lydia put the Rubic's Cube she had absentmindedly playing with back down on Josephine's desk where she'd found it and asked, "Trying to make an honest woman out of me eh Josephine?"  
  
"What?!  No!  Nothing like that!  About the Inquisition!  Please Lydia, do not make such jokes!"  
  
"That might be a problem.  My parents are not entirely pleased with...well, I suppose my life choices in general."  
  
"Come now Lydia, surely it cannot be that bad," Josephine said.  
  
"Oh it is that bad.  Maybe worse.  You want to see?" Lydia asked and pulled a scroll from her horn-shaped pocketbook that she thrust into Josephine's hands, "Read this.  It came from my mother back in Ostwick two days ago."  
  
The Antivan nerd began to read the letter.  It was a letter that she'd read perhaps a six and fifty times over the past two days.  A letter she now, knew by heart...  
  
 _Daughter,_  
  
 _I have heard most troublesome murmurings regarding you that are most sacrilegious indeed.  The Herald of Andraste?  Honestly Lydia, why must you continue to bring shame upon House Trevelyn?  While you lack of discretion with some of our female servants has brought much disgrace to our House here in Ostwick, few beyond the walls of our fair city know of your rather unnatural predilections.  This Herald of Andraste nonsense, however?  Already it has spread through at least the Free Marches and Maker knows where else.  Are you well aware that your fifth cousin by blood, Randy Trevelyn, nearly came to blows with a fellow at Lady Buttlefort's annual Decemberween Ball merely for sharing the same surname as the blasphemous "Herald of Andraste."  His mother sent a quite strongly worded letter to your father regarding the matter and demanding we, as your parents, encourage you to put a stop to this madness._  
  
 _I had thought that after attending the Conclave you would come to feel the Maker's light and enter the Chantry as all the youngest daughters of House Trevelyn have done since time immemorial, but clearly I was wrong in my assumption.  I am not entirely certain why you have turned away from the Chant of Light, but it is not too late to put aside this ridiculous blasphemy and return to the Maker.  I have spoken with Mother Mary and she would be more than willing to overlook your past indiscretions and allow you to take you place in the Chantry as a novice immediately._  
  
 _Please do not continue to sully the good name of House Trevelyn with this ludicrous inquisition nonsense.  If you wish to continue down the path upon which you currently find yourself than I will have no choice but to rather publicly disavow you before the Chantry and have your name stricken from our family registry.  Please do not let it come to this, daughter.  Again, your father and I beseech you, Lydia, to put aside this foolishness and return to Ostwick._  
  
 _Yours In Andraste,_  
 _Lady Trevelyn_  
  
Josephine looked up from the letter and Lydia was certain there were tears in her eyes.  The puffy shirted nerd wiped her eyes with a lace handkerchief and said, "I am very sorry Lydia.  Had I known about this letter I would never have asked you about your family.  I will find the support we need elsewhere.  I hope you can forgive me for causing you even further pain."  
  
"No Josephine, it's okay.  Really...how could you possibly know that my mom is a crazy Chantry lady who wants me to be a nun?  Could you imagine that?  Me?  A nun?"  
  
"Actually I can...but...but that's not what we're talking about," Josephine said, sounding quite flustered, "We need...um...we need to do more to drum up support for the Inquisition.  I'll keep working on some of the noble houses I know and you should...um...you should go and see what you can do to help the common folk."  
  
"Seriously?  You're going to go let me help those refugees get blankets and ram meats and stuff?" Lydia asked.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Thank God.  I've been trying to do that forever, but Leilana was all like, 'Go find Grey Wardens!' and Cassandra was like, 'Go talk to this Enchantress!'  I could kiss you Josephine!"  
  
"Please don't do that."  
  
 **COMMERCIAL BREAK!**  
  
"So like what do Grey Wardens do when there's not a Blight on, yeah?" Sara asked as she, Lydia, Blackwall, and Vivian tromped through the wilds of the Hinterlands hunting rams.  
  
"I suppose we keep the peace as best we can.  Help those in need.  Battle darkspawn in the Deep Roads.  There's a lot of stuff that keeps us busy," the elegantly bearded Grey Warden said as he wrestled a ram to the ground and then punched the goddamn life out of it.  
  
"So that's why you joined the Inquisition yeah?  Help those in need right?" Sara replied.  
  
"I suppose it is," Blackwall replied as she stood and slung the last heap of ram meat needed over his shoulder, "You're here too...so why'd you join?"  
  
"Pssh...no Inquisition can be all broody beards like you and Cassandra," said Sara.  
  
"HA! Like she's got the hair for it!"  
  
"Oh she's got hair I bet...places...you know..."  
  
Lydia sighed, "Come on guys, let's just get this ram meat heap back to those refugees.  They've been waiting for it for like a month.  I'd be surprised if they haven't already resorted to cannibalism."  
  
A short while later the party found themselves down in the refugee Hoovertown.  Most fortunately the refugees had not yet resorted to cannibalism and they were hella stoked to have heaps of ram meat and asthma inhalers and stuff like that.  It really made their Hoovertown at the Crossroads slightly less soul crushingly depressing than it really was.  As Blackwall and Sara looked at trinkets and doodads on a araber's cart Lydia cracked open her Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper and looked over her adventurer notes.  
  
  
 _Adventure Journal_  
  
"You know, Herald, I think it might behoove you to travel to that meet and greet with those rebel mages," Vivian said as she stared over Lydia's shoulder at the To-Do List in the old Two Kitties Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper, "I bet that if you do that one your Small Council people will have more jobs for you.  It's pretty obvious that you're supposed to go do that quest now...I mean, at least to me.  Sure you could go close some more neon green sky rips, or maybe power yourself up and go see the Templars first, but you know in your heart of hearts you should just go see those stupid rebel mages and teach them a lesson that they'll never forget."  
  
"Goddammit you are totally right!" Lydia exclaimed, "Sera!  Blackwall!  Stop flirting with each other and get your shit together!  We've got some mages to wreck house on!"  
 **  
COMMERCIAL BREAK!**  
  
A terrible screech filled the forest and there was a slight breeze as wings beat against air.  For a moment no one spoke, so stunned were they by what had happened.  It was, of course, Sara who broke the silence.  "Dude I cannot believe we almost got eaten by a goddamn dragon!" Sara shouted, "I didn't think I'd have to deal with getting eaten by a dragon when I joined this inquisition right?  Thought I'd just help some people people, maybe stick it to a couple nobles...maybe rub bits with a right proper lady?  But dragons yeah?  No."  
  
"Sara, we didn't almost get eaten by a dragon," Lydia said.  
  
"So that dragon right?  Just wanted to say 'Hello,' when she swooped down and barfed fire all over the place?"  
  
"We're all fine.  No one got eaten.  No one got burned.  We're all fine," Lydia said, but she didn't feel fine.  They had, in fact, almost gotten eaten by a dragon, as they made their way to Redcliffe, and it hadn't been a mini-dragon or a mid-sized dragon.  It was a flying dragon...undoubtedly has as fuck, as was their wont.  Maybe her mom had been right.  Maybe this entire inquisition was pretty stupid.  Was she really so concerned about setting things right that she was willing to get eaten by a dragon at age 19?  
  
"Alright Lydia, if you say so, but if that dragon comes back you're going to stand in front of me right?" Sara asked, "I really don't want to get eaten."  
  
"Yes, I'll stand in front of you if the dragon comes back alright?  Now come on, I see our scout chilling out over there.  We should go talk with him and get on with wrecking house on the rebel mages," Lydia said.  
  
She and her friends headed down the hill towards their scout and were all like, "Yo mang what's the good word," and the scout was like, "Yo hoss, I got no idea what the score is.  We got here a couple days ago but everyone was like, 'The fuck you talkin' 'bout...meeting with Enchantress Fiona?  Get the fuck outta here with that shit mang!'  We're all chilling at the bar just waiting to see what's up."  
  
At precisely that moment an elf wizard dude was like, "Yo Magister Mike is in charge here now, but he hasn't arrived yet.  Maybe you can speak with Fiona while you wait for him to arrive."  
  
"Magister?  That sounds like some Davinter shit," Blackwall said.  
  
"Davinters yeah?  Fuck those fucking shitballs right?" Sara shouted.  
  
"Guys, I think this recruit the mages quest just got a whole lot more interesting."  
  
 **TO BE CONTINUED!  
  
  
**  
  
---  
   
  
**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Director's Commentary: I finished the war map last night.  There are no new war map quests available so I decided to go do the mage thing since that is clearly main plot, plot and will probably cause more war map quests to become available.  And in a very Skyrim-esque moment, I did indeed randomly get attacked by a high dragon while walking from some camp to Redcliffe.  Somehow I was able to escape without dying, but I ended up using a lot of healing potions to do so.  I'm glad that Redcliffe is pretty much exactly like Redcliffe in DAO with an additional Odette is a Good Hero statue (of a dog I think instead of a person...). 


	6. Dragon Age - S04E06 - Mustache Deluxe

"Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible to feeling as to sight? Or art thou but a dagger of the mind, a false creation, proceeding from the heat-oppressèd brain?" wailed a teenager in mage robes down by the dock.  
  
"Yo mang are you Conner Eamon? Son of Earl Eamon?" Lydia asked. Like everyone who had been an elementary school student during the Fifth Blight, she had heard the rumors (usually from someone whose "cousin totally lived in Redcliffe") about Conner Eamon and how he totally lost his shit and turned into a Hamburger Helper Mage but was saved by the Hero of Feldspar and some blood magic. If the stories were to be believed it was this event that lead to King Alistair and the Hero of Feldspar totally hating each other.  
  
Conner seemed shocked by having his soliloquy interrupted. "I...I am Conner Eamon and...and the blood of Redcliffe is on my hands!"  
  
"Yeah you probably shouldn't have come here," Lydia said, "Anyway do you hate the Davinters being here?"  
  
"Yes. They are terrible. I mean I was 10 when I turned into a Hamburger Helper wizard. When I did it I was just a dumbass kid trying to save his dad, but I see how bad that shit is now. It something that devours my soul with each passing moment...out damned spot! Out I say...oh sorry I got a little carried away there...anyway for grown ass men and women to willing consort with demons and Hamburger Helper Wizards? No sir, I don't like it," Conner said.  
  
"Okay thanks for that," Lydia said and then turning to her companions was like, "Man this place sucks. There are stupid rebel mages all over the place. I'm sick of those guys...making me chug potions like woah...fuck 'em all! Let's go grab some brews at the bar dudes."  
  
Sera and Blackwall did triumphant fist bumps, but Vivian seemed kind of disappointed that they were not rushing to a throne room to do political intrigue. "You know, Lady Trevelyn, you are a noble...common decency would dictate the current Arl of Redcliffe greet you as such," she said, "There is no need for us to debase ourselves by visiting a crude public house such as this."  
  
"Huh? Dude, you sound like my mom. 'Lydia a proper lady should not arm wrestle the stablehands.' 'A proper lady should not wear pantaloons when greeting foreign dignitaries.' 'A proper lady does not do...whatever that was that you two were just doing with the serving girls!'  Well, Vivian you're not my boss and you're not my mom, so we're going to the bar to get some booze and maybe hookup with someone that we will regret hooking up with in the morning, and that's the bottom line, because the Herald of Andraste said so!"  
  
**COMMERCIAL BREAK!!**  
  
"No wait!  No wait!  Check this out!   _BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURP!!!!!!_ " Blackwall belched like the fattest fatass in all of Thedas.  
  
Sara slapped her knee and was like, "Bloody brilliant!"  
  
At precisely that moment Mage Boss Supreme Fiona showed up at the bar.  Lydia stood up and was like, "Dudes, dudes!  It's Fiona let's go say something to her.  Yo Fiona!  What's the deal?  You invite us here to discuss some sort of team up and now you're all buddy buddy with the goddamn Davinters?  That's fucking bullshit Fiona and you know it!"  
  
"I'm sorry, do I know you?" Fiona asked.  
  
"Fuck you Fiona, you came all the way to France to invite me here," Lydia spat.  
  
Fiona scratched her chin to indicate being in thought.  "No, I'd remember something like that.  I haven't been to France since before this civil war began."  
  
"Then who the fuck did I meet who looked exactly like you, claimed to be Fiona the Mage Boss Supreme of the Rebel Forces, had your voice, and that same ass that just won't quit?" Lydia asked.  
  
"I dunno..."  
  
Suddenly some dude with gauntlets and points and weird angles came into the bar.  "Herald of Andraste!  I am dreadfully sorry for the delay.  When I heard you'd arrived and were here engaged in some manner of belching competition I got here as quickly as I could.  My name is Magister Mike and I am the Main Magister here and the boss of all the rebel mages."  
  
"Fuck off Davinter suckbag.  I need those mages to close that damn The Breach."  
  
"Yes about that.  Come, sit down let us discuss the Breach," Magister Mike said.  As he sat he said to another guy with slightly fewer angles, "Scott, go fetch a scribe.  That's my son, Scott.  He's going to get a scribe.  Anyway about the Breach maybe we can help you out with that, but such a task would take a lot of mages."  
  
"How many ya got dude?"  
  
But before Magister Mike could reply, his son, Scott, came stumbling back into the bar.  He looked like shit and Lydia wondered if he'd been stabbed.  Scott staggered a few feet and collapsed into Lydia's arms.  He apparently had not been stabbed but was still pretty fucked up.  Magister Mike sprang to his feet and was all like, "Scott!  Scott!  My son, we must get him back to the castle!  Herald we shall continue this discussion at a later date!  I must look after my son!"  He and his son departed and it was then that Lydia noticed the note that Scott had slipped into her coat pocket: "Come to the Chantry.  We have much to discuss."  
  
**COMMERCIAL BREAK!**  
  
"Oi that's gotta be a trap yeah?" Sara said looking at the note, "Not a very clever one though...the Jennies would never bait a trap so boringly...'Come to the Chantry...we have much to discuss...' needs more bees right?"  
  
Lydia stood up, "Finish your drinks, we've got a trap to spring."  
  
Blackwall and Sera chugged beers and then they along with Vivian headed out of the bar and down to the Chantry.  But when they opened the door there was a big surprise.  The did not see Scott or some sort of Davinter suckbags, but rather a Mustache Deluxe battling a neon green sky rip right in the middle of the Chantry.  Lydia drew her bigass sword and threw herself into combat, slashchopping the shit out of lanky fucks and too talls and whatever else was popping out of the sky rip.  Occasionally she would put her hand up to shout beams out of her mark and fuck over the sky rip.  When all was said and done is was Lydia 1, Sky Rip bupkis!  
  
The Mustache Deluxe stepped forward, "Unbelievable!  How did you do that?"  
  
Lydia shrugged.  
  
"Of course you don't know.  Just put your hand up and waggle your fingers and _poof_ neon green sky rip closed!"  
  
"Ummm...okay.  Who are you?" Lydia asked.  
  
"Ah yes, I suppose I got a bit ahead of myself.  My name is Dorian 'Mustache Deluxe' Parapa the Rapper," said the Mustache Deluxe, "I hail from Davinter and I am here because I need your help in stopping Magister Mike.  Isn't it weird how the Boss Mage of the Rebels totally changed her mind about you as if by magic?"  
  
"Yeah that is kind of weird.  I figured she was just really hammered in France and totally forgot about even meeting me.  Have you seen that chick drink?" Lydia asked.  
  
"No, but it isn't because she is a boozehound.  It was magic.  Magister Mike used to be my boss and he is totally using time machine magic to dick you over."  
  
"Time machine magic?  You havin' a larf?" Sara asked.  
  
"She's right...what the shit is time machine magic?  I've never heard of such shit," Lydia added.  
  
"No, of course you wouldn't have.  It's very new, very unstable magic.  I invented the theory behind it, but it appears that Magister Mike has worked out the kinks and can now do Time Machine magic in earnest...though it still seems hella unstable.  
  
At that moment, Scott came into the Chantry.  "Hey Dorian," said he  
  
"Hey Scott," said Dorian, "Anyway Herald, come find me when you're ready to help me put a stop to Magister Mike and his Time Machine Magic once and for all.  A Power Level of 15 should suffice.  Oh, and Scott, try not to die."  
  
Lydia's jaw dropped and she said, "Please tell me you're kidding!  Power level 15?  Fuck...I just spent a big chunk of power to open up some sort of Mysterious Oasis!  Well it looks like we're going back out into the Hinterlands to kill sheep and delivery packages and shit guys."  
  
**TO BE CONTINUED!**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Director's Commentary: I don't know how I feel about this "You must be 15 powers high to ride this ride" mechanic to be honest.  Like it was okay when the Templars were like, "Bah!  You're nothing!  Come back when you've got some clout!" but this time I'd totally met the dude already.  He and I talked in a bar and then because of plot he left and now I suddenly have to go find iron and help farmers more before I can talk to him again?  It kind of killed the flow of what was happening and took me out of the story.  "Hey guys this guy is totally doing shitty magic that can destroy the whole world!  We gotta stop him!  Oh you didn't find enough shards yet?  Come back after doing 8 more side quests..."


	7. Dragon Age - S04E07 - Seeing a Man About a Horse

"So, have you spoken with the mages about ending their rebellion and helping you close that The Breach?" Leliana asked. The one time bard of Orleans had an uncanny knack for haranguing Lydia about random inquisition bullshit at precisely the moment she sat down to eat breakfast.  
  
Lydia put down the mug of coffee she had yet to take a single sip from and replied, "I did in fact go and talk to some sort of fucking wizards in Redcliffe, but guess what? They're suddenly allied with the Davinters, and now I need 15 powers before anyone will talk to me. Pretty much bullshit huh?"  
  
"No. I'll tell you what's bullshit. You! Just look at you, sitting here and drinking coffee when there are powers to obtain and alliances to be forged. One would think that the Herald of Andraste would be a little more concerned about the forces of evil conspiring to end the entire world that Her inquisition alone stands against," said Leliana.  
  
Lydia couldn't take it anymore and shouted, "Jesus Tittyfucking Christ! I've told you like 903,292 times that I'm not the Herald of Andraste! I'm just a lady whose mom hates her that got sent to some Conclave shit because of humping a servant girl, and even if I were this Herald, which I'm not, even you can admit that even Heralds of Andraste need breakfast before they set out to hunt rams for hungry refugees or rustle up inhalers for asthmatics."  
  
"Sucks to their assmar!" Leliana shouted and tromped off out of the dining hall.  As she passed Sara she shouldered the elf and mutter, "Outta my way..."  
  
Sara sat down across from Lydia and forked a sausage from her plate.  "You're not eating that right?" she asked as she chomped down on the sausage, "Ginger's a bit of a nutter this morning?  Anyway that doesn't matter yeah?  I was looking at your diary right and thought maybe we could go see that man about horses right?  I've never actually seen a horse up close before."  
  
Lydia blinked at the elf with a wide, shit-eating grin plastered upon her face seated across form her.  "You read my diary?  How did you read my diary?  It's in my bag."  
  
"I nicked it.  See I was looking for some gauze or cotton or something...the Red Jennies paid me a visit if you catch my drift...and I saw your diary and I say to myself, 'Bloody 'ell is that a Two Kittens Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper?!' and it was right?  Anyway I dinnit know it was your diary when I took it, yeah, but when I realized what it was I gave it a little peek," Sara said, "You can have it back.  I just wanted to have a look, see if you wrote anything about me, yeah?  Anyway like I said, I think we should go see those horses right?"  
  
Sara handed the Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper back and Lydia's heart pounded like a sledgehammer.  How much had Sara actually read?  The stuff about the horses was near the front of the diary and in the months she'd known her, Sara had never once shown herself to have a particularly long attention span.  Maybe she hadn't read that far.  Sara chugged the mug of coffee that sat before Lydia and then stood and headed out of the dining hall.  Perhaps Lydia was worrying about nothing after all.  
  
Sara suddenly turned and declared, "Oh and that stuff about you and me with Josie?  Dinnit know you were such a saucy girl!  The Herald of Andraste wants to have a tumble with a puffy shirted priss and a right regular person person?  Blood brilliant!  I mean I'm game, but Miss Josie seems a little too prim and proper for some of that doesn't she yeah?  He he he..."  
  
 **COMMERCIAL BREAK!**  
  
"Smells a bit like shit doesn't it?" Sara pouted.  
  
"Well, we are on a ranch Buttercup," Varric said as they crossed a corral towards the farm house of Rancher Duke Fisticuffs, "Horses are pretty notorious for shitting all over the place.  It's one of the reason we dwarves don't have horses in Orzamar."  
  
Lydia tried to ignore them as she stomped up onto Duke Fisticuffs' front porch.  Duke was there chilling out in a rocking chair sipping a Bartles & Jaymes wine cooler.  "Hey Inquisition, I've been expecting you.  Heard you're looking for some horses.  I'd like to give ya some, but I won't until I know they won't end up in some bandito's cook pot before they get to Haven."  Duke took a long pull from the bottle, finishing the delectable nectar within and then chucked the empty wine cooler bottle into a trash heap near the front porch.  "Listen if you can help ma wife and help ma man Bron with some trouble they've been having I reckon I can give ya some horses, so hop to it."   
  
"You got beef with me personally?" Lydia asked.  
  
"What?  Naw...naw...I mean some of my family went to Kirkwall during the last Blight...I mean I wouldn't let any of my kids marry a Marcher or anything like that, but I've got no trouble with you Inquisition.  Listen, I've got a horse, she's got some years on her, but she's better than any of the old nags or plow horses you've got now.  Would a man who hates Free Marchers give one a horse?  I doubt it.  Anyway talk to ma wife and ma man Bron.  Help 'em out and the horses are yours."  
  
"Whateves.  Come on guys let's go check out my sweet new ride," Lydia said and she and her crew headed out to check out her horse.  For a free horse it was pretty good.  She rode around the farm a couple times much to the delight of Missy Fisticuffs, Duke's daughter with a buzzcut.  Lydia considered doing inappropriate things with her to get back at Duke for his shitty attitude about Free Marchers but decided against it since Missy seemed to be more into horses than anything else.  
  
"So, what are you going to name her yeah?" Sara asked as Lydia leaped from her horse and it ran smack into the side of a barn, "Sara the Horse has a nice ring to it right?"  
  
"Won't that just make things really confusing?" Vivian asked.  
  
"Wot?  No.  Why would anyone confuse me with a horse?  If yer all talkin' someone's like, 'Sara ate a bunch of hay so you blokes needn't feed her,' no one's going to think you were talkin' about me.  And if someone else is like 'Sara shot some bloke in the tender bits for getting lippy and then went to the bar and snogged that one wench with the huge tits,' no one would be like, 'Must've been Sara the Horse!'  I mean you could name it something else if you wanted, but I'd be pretty sad about it and would probably go talk to Josie about how sad I was that that mean old git, Lydia, wouldn't name a horse after me..."  
  
"Sara the Horse it is!" Lydia exclaimed.  
  
"Leliana and Cassandra are going to be pretty pissed off," Varric said.  
  
"Meh...they're always pissed off," Lydia offered, "Anyway dudes let's go talk to some farmers so we can get horses for everyone!"  
  
The went across the corral to where Ma Fisticuffs was doing some farming in a chainmail dress.  "It's these damn wolves that made all my farmers haul ass outta here.  Now I gotta tend the crops maself...anyway I heard ya jawin' with my husband.  If you can help me with these wolves I'll make sure he gives you them horses you need...so long as you stay away from ma daughter.  I saw the way you were lookin' at her.  I don't know how you Marchers do things, but we don't cotton to that sort of thing here."  
  
"Alright whateves...where's your husband's man, Bron?" Lydia said, totally rolling her eyes.  
  
"Right over there."  
  
Lydia walked, right over there and met Bron.  "Hey mang," she said.  
  
"Hey I got a lot of rad ideas about fighting banditos and I need your help.  It will totally help my farmers and your refugees if there are scout towers.  I marked some locations on a map for you.  Check it out and if they're up to snuff build some towers and then I'll talk the boss into helping your cause," Bron said.  
  
"That sounds reasonable.  I'm sure the time and money needed to construct three towers will not impact our inquisition negatively at all.  You got yourself a deal mang!"  
  
 **COMMERCIAL BREAK!**  
  
  
  
Lydia climbed up a hill to the third of the three possible scout tower locations and wrecked house on some rogue Templars.  She had to hand it to Bron, the dude had scouted out some fine scout tower locations, and they would be a boon to not only the farmers, but also the refugees and the larger Inquisition.  The only problem was going to be the logistics of getting them built.  Building one tower, let alone three, took time and time was totally of the essence.  She was going to have to call a small council meeting and probably get yelled at by Leliana and eyefucked by Cullen and accidentally made to feel like shit for having strained familial relations with her parents by Josephine.  Why couldn't have Bron asked for something simple like killing demon wolves?  
  
"Come on guys we gotta go back to Haven and talk to someone about building these towers," Lydia said, "Hey Varric you want to be the Herald for a little while?"  
  
"Not even for a second."  
  
Several days later they were back in Haven and Lydia found herself making a case for the construction of several scouting towers in the Hinterlands.  Cullen stopped undressing her with his eyes for a moment and was like, "My boyz with a z can get that shit done.  45 minutes tops.  Go get a cup of coffee or whatever and we'll have those towers up in a jiffy."  
  
"Seriously?  Forty-five minutes?" Lydia asked.  
  
"Yeah.  You think my boyz with a z can't get it done?" Cullen asked.  
  
"No, I'll take your word for it," Lydia said and turned to leave for the dining hall to get that cup of coffee.  
  
As she walked towards the door, Josephine was like, "Lydia, wait!  The Danish heard about your awesomeness and sent a moose for you to ride, and the uhhh....swamp people sent you something that they said was 'a unicorn.'  It's honestly pretty gross, but they're both down in the stables."  
  
"Cool, I'll check them out."  
  
Lydia headed down the stables and saw the moose and the "unicorn."  The moose was pretty good, and the "unicorn" was as disgusting as Josephine had said it was.  It was pretty much the grossest gross that ever grossed.  Lydia turned her attention back to the moose.  While she was feeding the moose some oats, Sara the Elf wandered over.  "Aw...that moose thing is even better that Sara the Horse right?  What are you going to name her?  Sara I hope.  I'd be pretty sad if you named her something else.  Might have to go pour my heart out to Josie right?"

  
  
 _A moose._  
  
  
  
A gross.

"I think it's a dude."  
  
"So?  There are lots of blokes named Sara, yeah?"  
  
"Name one."  
  
"Your wish is something something..." Sara began but before she could name one bloke named Sara, Cullen stuck his head out the door and was like, "Yo dudes I just heard back from my boyz with a z and the towers are done.  You can go hand in those quests now and maybe get some power.  That last part about the quests and power was a direct quote from Leliana by the way."  
  
Lydia sighed and gathered her forces.  She figured since it was just a job hand in she'd take Iron Bull along since he's was rad but not particularly useful in a fight, and Cassandra in case she needed someone to deal with that nationalistic douchebag, Duke Fisticuffs.  They arrived at the farm with little to no trouble and talked to Bron.  "Dude your towers are built," Lydia said, "Now will you tell your boss how badass we are?"  
  
"Yup."  
  
"Jawesome!" Lydia replied and she and Bron bumped fists.  
  
She then went back to the porch where Duke Fisticuffs was on bottle 52 of Bartles & Jaymes.  "You goddamn Free Marcher...I want you off my prop-a-tee!  Huh...oh it's you Inquisition.  Whelp...you halped my wife and ya halped my man Bron, so the horses are yours.  I'ma send 'em with my stablehands."  
  
"I thought you were coming too," Lydia said.  
  
"No, I'm an old man and I just want to drink wine coolers on my porch while my wife and daughter and my man Bron do all the work," Duke said, but Cassandra was not having it and called the guy a "yellow bellied chicken" and made chicken noises at him and then Duke was like, "Oh alright...I'll go with you.  Just let me get my affairs in order here.  Ya got Bartles & Jaymes up there in Haven right?"  
  
 **TO BE CONTINUED!**  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Director's Commentary: And so my grind for 15 powers is underway.  I obtained a horse and killed some wolves and built some towers and did some other crap on a farm (closed a rift, raced a horse, etc.).  Also my deluxe edition rewards decided that though they didn't want to give me the awesome for low level weapon and armor pack they did find it in their heart of hearts to give me a couple mounts I will probably never use (pictured below).  I'm still kind of mad about not being able to wreck house on Davinters due to a lack of power, but spending a day down on the farm was pretty fun nonetheless.


	8. Dragon Age - S04E08 - "Your Choice Is Mages."  "FUCK!"

Sara the Elf sat high in the saddle of Sara the Moose as the creature let out a bellow that sounded like one of those wooden whistles designed to replicate the sound of a steam engine and dashed across the fields.  Sara the Elf let out a shout of joy, "Oi!  Look at me!  Horses is bloody brilliant!  I can see why you noble ladies like horses so much, but I don't know why a bloke would want to ride one yeah?  Seems like it would be kind of a pain in the tender bits right?"  
  
  
_The sounds of a Moose_  
  
Sara the Moose skidded to a stop need a lake or possibly a pond and Sara the Elf hopped down from the moose and patted the moose on its side and whispered, "Thanks for the ride girl I feel much better now...in my ladybits right?"  
  
Solas strode forward and intoned, "For someone who finds her own culture and heritage so loathsome I am surprised how well you can ride a scared Danish moose, though I am rather dismayed by the reason why you seem to have taken to riding this noble creature."  
  
"What are you on about yeah?"  
  
"'Sara the Moose' is a sacred animal to all the Danish.  Few can ride them with the skill that you have demonstrated," Solas continued.  
  
"Bloody 'ell...why didn't you say nothing before you baldheaded tosser?  Letting me carry on like a git about how great horses are when I'm riding around on some sort of Danish heritage thing!" Sara stomped her foot and shouted, "Oi, Lydia the next time you let me ride, I want to ride that bloody swamp people unicorn instead, alright?" 

\---  
  
"Fuck.  Bupkis again!" Lydia shouted in dismay as she tossed the magical great sword she'd pulled out of a lake into her horn-shaped pocketbook, "You'd think appeasing a lake spirit would warrant at least a little power, but nope...just some stupid sword.  There's got to be a better way!  I mean we don't even need that much power anymore.  Two more powers and we can go talk to that Davinter guy and hopefully chop him to bits."  
  
"The other day when I was reading your diary I saw some thing about finding some sort of Templar hideout yeah?  That's guaranteed to give you at least a power or two or Bob's yer uncle right?" Sara offered.  
  
The fact that Sara had read her diary still rubbed Lydia the wrong way, but she did have a point: finding a Templar stronghold and wrecking house on them would surely be good for at least a power or two.  And so, Lydia pulled out her Two Kittens Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper and looked at her notes about the alleged Templar Stronghold.  Fortune smiled upon her as it actually wasn't that far from where she currently was.  
  
"Alright dudes we're going to go wreck house on the Templars, get your stuff together and let's roll out," Lydia said.  Sara, Solas, and Blackwall gathered their arms and armaments and then together with Lydia actually rolled down the side of a mountain into a heap of Templars.  The Templars were all like "RAWR!!!" and had big ass shields and shit, but Solas iced 'em up and then Lydia smashed 'em to bits with her bigass sword.  But these Templars were just rookies or maybe Templars who were doing time in the hole or something since they were camped outside of the actual Templar stronghold.  
  
"I don't think these are the Templars we were looking for," Blackwall said as he cut a fool down, "Maybe that heap of stockade over there houses the Templars we need to find!"  
  
Blackwall seemed to be on the ball, and quite knowledgeable about various types of walls and fences, though Lydia supposed that was the result of his name more than anything else, and so the party headed up the the stockade and Lydia shouted, "Hey is this the Templar stronghold?" and some guy inside was like "Who wants to know?" thus begetting a rather unfortunate and dated reference to that "Are you Jimmy Ray?" song from the late 90s or early aughts.  
  
  
  
"JESUS FUCKING CHRIST WHY WOULD YOU SING THAT AT ME?!" the Templar shouted as the song finished, "THAT WAS THE MOST ANNOYING THING EVER!"  The Templar pulled out his bow to try to shoot arrows, but Lydia charged forward like a Charger and charged the shit out of the would-be bowman.  He got knocked to the ground and then Lydia leaped up into the air and cleaved the dude's shit in two.  More Templars came "RAWR!"ing out of some sort of tents and trying to do grievous bodily harm to Lydia & Co., but you'd have to be a goddamn fool to step to the Inquisition and those Templars got their shit totally ruined in a most complete fashion.  
  
Suddenly some sort of Templar Mini-Boss sword up and was like, "FUCK ALL Y'ALL!  This Swedish Fingers Sword will chop the shit outta you!!!  IT'S A UNIQUE ITEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"  
  
But even with his unique item, the Templar Mini-Boss fell to the combined might for two lesbians, a beard, and a bald in two shakes of a puppydog's tail.  His shit was totally and utterly ruined and while searching his corpse for usable treasures, Lydia found two powers in his fannypack.  Lydia could not contain her joy and did a victory dance right there in the Templar stronghold she'd wrecked house upon.  "Dudes, let's get back to the war room so we can get permission to wreck house on the motherfucking Davinters!"  
  
  
_Lydia Trevelyn_  
  
**COMMERCIAL BREAK!  
**   
"I really must insist that you don't go anywhere near Redcliffe again.  It is so obviously a trap it's not even funny," Cullen said, his furry shoulders bristling, "Go and talk with the Templars instead.  They're just being douchelords but they're not going to turn into Hamburger Helper Mages and ruin your shit."  
  
"Dude I pretty much have to go though," Lydia argued, "It's the goddamn Davinters...they are totally the worst."  
  
"But, that Krem dude outside is a Davinter and he seems alright," Cullen said.  
  
"Yeah but Krem isn't a magister or wizrobe or whatever.  Just a dude with a girly voice and a extreme undercut," Lydia offered, "Of course they're not going to be the worst.  But in Redcliffe it's not a heap of Krems its a heap of wizrobes and magisters who have totally forged an alliance with all the mage rebels, so I think we gotta get in there an kill 'em all."  
  
"How?  How are you going to get in there and kill 'em all?  Redcliffe is like the best defended castle in all of Feldspar, you're not going to be able to take in by force," Cullen shouted.  
  
Josephine stepped forward, "Well Magister Mike did invite Lydia to visit him, so we could get her and a couple companions in at least."  
  
"Oh! I totally know a way in!  There's a secret tunnel in the windmill that Odette and I took to sneak in and do shenanigans to stop a demon during the Fifth Blight," Leliana shouted, "I could lead some assassins in that way while Lydia creates a distraction in the throne room."  
  
"Then it's agreed, we'll bust in that way and wreck house on some Davinters!" Lydia shouted and then pounded her fist onto the war table.  Action figures scattered all over the place and Cullen scowled disapprovingly.  At precisely that moment the door swung open and a mustache deluxe ran into the room with a scout right behind him.  "Milord and Miladies I'm hella sorry, this dude just came rushing past us hella quick and we couldn't catch up with him."  
  
"I'm a Davinter and I'm here ta say / You'll never get past Mike's se-cur-it-tay!" the mustache deluxe rapped like a white person on a late 80s early 90s family sitcom, "Seriously though, you'll need me if you want to not die in Redcliffe Castle.  Magister Mike is kind of a cockmonger and has a lot of tricks up his sleeve.  It's going to be a sticky situation if you don't take me along."  
  
"We've got some mages dude," Lydia said, "There's Solas and there's Vivian.  Solas is bald but otherwise a pretty alright dude, and Vivian was kind of rude when I tried to put the make on her, but she's got a really cool hat that all but makes up for it.  You?  You I don't know.  Maybe you're a good dude...maybe you're part of the trap...maybe you're just trying to get into my pants..."  
  
"Definitely no on that last thing about your pants," the mustache deluxe interjected.  
  
"Whatever, the point is, I don't know if I can trust you about this guy I barely know," Lydia said.  
  
"I've got an awesome mustache."  
  
Lydia stared at his mustache.  It was indeed one of the best mustaches she'd ever seen.  Way better than Bull's mustache.  "Alright...you can come, but only because you've got a sweet mustache.  Just don't make me regret this."  
  
Cullen groaned in anguish, "Seriously I think this might be your last chance to get the Templars to help you."  
  
"Calm down Cullen, I'm just going to go in, crack some Davinter skulls, tell the other mages to fuck off for betraying us...and all of Feldspar for that matter, and then go chat up the Templars and have them help me seal a The Breach," Lydia offered.  
  
"No, really, I don't think the Templars will be willing to work with you if you do anything that looks like it's helping the mages," Cullen said.  He looked exasperated.  
  
"Helping the mages...dude please!  I'm planning on putting like 80% of them to the sword.  I fully expect to have to fight my way through a heap of Hamburger Helper Mages before this is all said and done."  
  
**COMMERCIAL BREAK!**  
  
"So we really can't go see the Templars after this?" Lydia asked Cassandra as they strolled into Redcliffe Castle.  
  
The Seeker shook her head, "No, Lydia, I believe that is what Cullen was trying to tell you in his own roundabout way."  
  
"But I didn't even think of this as helping the mages, it's more like fucking over the Davinters isn't it?" Lydia asked, "This makes about as much sense to me as Varric's stupid story about that Othello dude turning into a Tuna Helper Sorcerer while that Hawke lady was wrecking house on the Templars and clearly winning that conflict.  How does me coming here prevent me from speaking with the Templars?"  
  
"I really don't know, but apparently it does," Cassandra said.  
  
At that moment some sort of doorman greeted them, "Howdy and welcome to Redcliffe Castle, I'm afraid only you are allowed in beyond this point Herald of Andraste.  Your...companions...will have to wait out here."  
  
"Then I'm not taking another step," Lydia spat back.  
  
"Look lady, I'm just trying to do my job here," the guy replied.  
  
"Not another step."  
  
Lydia put her hands on her hips defiantly and the guy who was just trying to do his job there stared at her a moment.  "Oh fine...those two can come along as well..." he finally said, when it became clear that he would not win a battle of wills with the Herald of Andraste, "This way..."  The guy led Lydia, Sara, and Cassandra into the throne room where Magister Mike and his son, Scott were chilling out, along with some sort of gross guys that were all gauntlets and angles and points.  
  
"Ah I'm so glad you could come Herald!" Magister Mike began.  
  
"Cut the bullshit dude I know this is a fucking trap.  What's your gimmick?  Why are you here for these mages and why do you want me dead?" Lydia shouted.  
  
Magister Mike scoffed, "Trap...pshaw...what trap?"  
  
"Dad, she knows everything," Scott said, "I'm going to die, you can't stop it Dad."  
  
"That's right Mike!" the mustache deluxe shouted as he appeared from the shadows.  
  
"Ah my former apprentice, Dorian!  Of course you would throw your lot in with these idiots!" Magister Mike said, "The so-called Herald of Andraste.  Ha!  I laugh.  Girl, you are nothing more than a mistake.  A mistake that I will rectify and bring about the return of the Elder One!"  
  
"Jesus mang, must you be such a mustache twirling villain stereotype?" Dorian asked.  
  
"What do you mean I was a mistake?" Lydia shouted as the situation grew ever closer to the boss fight boiling point.  
  
"You have that mark on your hand and you don't even know what it means or what it does!" Magister Mike shouted.  
  
"Sure I do!  It shoots neon green beams out of it!  Anyway what's this Elder One you're talking about?  Some sort of wizard?"  
  
"Some sort of wizard?!  Too bad you won't be alive to see exactly what the Elder One is because you're going to die right here and right now!  TIME MACHINE MAGI~~~~~"  
  
Dorian shouted "C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!!!!"  
  
  
  
Lydia opened her eyes and found herself in some sort of creepy basement.  Dorian the Mustache was there too, but Cassandra and Sara were nowhere to be seen.  "Hey what are those two jokers doing down here?!" some guardsmangs bellowed and then went on the offensive.  Lydia was worried about fighting it out since she had no idea how rough or tough Dorian the Mustache actually was, but he seemed to know how to handle a staff and wrecked house on guardsmangs.  
  
"Dude, where the shit are we?" Lydia asked as the guardsmangs died.  
  
"Well, right before we arrived here Magister Mike did some Time Machine Magic, so I think the question should not be 'Where are we?' but rather 'When are we?'"  
  
**TO BE CONTINUED!!**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Director's Commentary: I got tricked.  Tricked into helping the mages.  I thought I was just going to wreck house on the Davinters and then go and be like "Yo Templars let's team up!" but apparently that's not how it works.  Sure I can jackass around the Hinterlands collecting broken shards and finding inhalers for asthmatics for weeks on end, but the second I go to some Castle plot machinations happen that make me unable to team up with the Templars?  Bullshit.  Anyway Dorian is maybe in my crew now or something.  Maybe he's just a temporary companion...I'm not sure.  If he's good at magic, maybe I'll switch Vivian out for him in my regular party lineup. 


	9. Dragon Age - S04E09 - Worse Than a Hamburger Helper Mage

**Previously on Dragon Age...**  
  
  
 **\---**  
  
"I must say Lady Trevelyn that you are dealing with the oddity of time travel with the greatest of ease!" the Mustache Deluxe named Dorian exclaimed, as he and Lydia crept through the dungeons of what was once Redcliffe Castle.  
  
  
  
There was red lyrium bullshit all over the place and Davinter fucklers lurking around every corner.  Lydia was impressed with not only Dorian's mustache, but also with how good he was at turning everyone into charbroiled.  They put fools on blast and pressed deeper into the dungeons until they came to a cell in which they heard moaning.  It was not the moans of an orgy, but rather moans of pain.  
  
Inside the cell was that horrible woman, Fiona the Boss Mage of the Rebel Mages, only she didn't look like regular type Fiona.  She had a heap of red lyrium growing out of her body which seemed to be a fate worse than being a Hamburger Helper Mage.  Lydia couldn't imagine how painful it must have been for Fiona, Boss Mage of the Rebel Mages, to have some goddamn crystals growing out of her vagina, but there was some small part of her that felt more than a little glad that such a terrible fate had befallen such an idiot.  
  
"Oh look at you in that jail cell, with a cooter full of red lyrium crystals...that must suck," Lydia taunted, but before Fiona could admit how she was a stupidhead and how terrible it was to have red lyrium heaps growing out of your vagina, Dorian was like, "Woman, what has happened here?  What year is it?  Quickly woman we haven't time!"  
  
"It's 942...Dragon...and Magister Mike released his Elder One and everything went to shit.  Now he grows Red Lyrium crystals in us for some kind of reason...plot I think.  I made a huge mistake!"  
  
"Yup, you pretty much did," Lydia said, "and now the entire world is paying for your stupidity.  Good job Fiona.  Good fucking job.  Come on Dorian, let's see if we can't fix this huge mistake, and by we, I mean you, since I have no idea about this magic shit at all.  I'll just chop up dudes who try to get up in your grill while we puzzle this shit out."  
  
"Sounds good.  I think that if we can get Magister Mike's necklace I can send us back to our own time and we can stop all this shit from ever happening," Dorian offered.  
  
It was good enough for Lydia and they set off together, continuing down into the dungeons until they found Sara and Cassandra.  Both of Lydia's companions now had red stink lines coming out of them and their voices sounded like they were talking into echo mics.  Cassandra was ready to chop fight dudes to death, but Sara thought that Lydia had turned into a demon or something.  
  
"Listen Sara, I'm sorry I scared you, but we need your help now.  I need to go back to last year and stop this shit from ever happening.  There might be locks between here and there that I need picked and you're the only one who can do it!" Lydia offered, "I promise I won't disappear because of magic and make you think I died ever again."  
  
"Oh bother...let's put an end to this shite..." Sara said and she too joined the party again, "Red is somewhere in here too.  She got captured and is probably being tortured now right?"  
  
"Then we gotta save her!" Lydia said.  
  
 **COMMERCIAL BREAK!**  
  
Lydia heard the sound of torture happening and kicked a door in to find a shitheap of Davinters torturing a lady, only it wasn't Leliana, it was just some nun.  Honestly though it didn't matter, Lydia hated Davinters and hated torturers and thus unleashed a fury of bigsword ownage and the suckbags in the room.  Even though Lydia's crew wrecked house on the Davinter douchelords and they were chopped into a million and three pieces of charbroiled wreckage, it was too late to save the nun lady...she was already dead.  Lydia would have to be quicker if she wanted to save Leliana, and so she rushed forward, throwing caution to the wind and busting into another torture chamber.  But Leliana was a tough lady with thunderous thighs and she choked the life out of her torturer before Lydia could wreck house.  
  
"You're alive!" Leliana exclaimed.  
  
She looked like a zombie or some other sort of undead...maybe a ghast.  Lydia felt sorry for her.  "Yeah we never really died, we just went on a zany time travel adventure.  It was like Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure only with less references to 80's hair metal bands," Lydia said.  
  
"I don't give a shit," Leliana replied coldly, "We gotta stop this Magister Mike douchebag.  You got weapons?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Then let's go!" Leliana shouted and rushed out of the torture chamber.  
  
Lydia and her crew followed after and were promptly attacked by some Davinter suckbags, but Dorian was all like, "BOOM FIRESTORM YOU'RE TOTALLY DEAD BRAH!" and engulfed dudes in heaps of fire as Sara and Leliana shot arrows at other suckbags and Cassandra and Lydia pounded on dudes with swords.  The party headed upstairs out of the dungeon towards the throne room where Magister Mike was undoubtedly throning it up and being a cockmonger of the worst sort.  Up into the royal quarters they ran and someone yelled, "Connor no!  Don't do that!" but who yelled, and for what reason was a mystery to Lydia since she saw neither hide nor hair of Connor.  
  
Finally the strike force made their way into a check point and they were attacked by a green sky rip right there in the middle of the castle.  They kicked its ass and discovered a dead dude with a red lyrium chunk.  "This is most peculiar," said the Mustache Deluxe, Dorian, "We should keep our eyes out for more of this bullcrap.  I have a feeling it may come in handy."  
  
 **COMMERCIAL BREAK!**  
  
"So is Scott still alive?" Dorian asked Leliana as they battled against more Davinter suckbags who undoubtedly had chunks of red lyrium in their pockets.  
  
"You totally see what happened with Scott," Leliana replied and arrowed the living hell out of some kind of Davinter wizrobe.  
  
"AHHHHHHHHH!!!" screamed a Davinter wizrobe as it burned to death while the two heroes had a conversation about Magister Mike's son.  
  
With the battle over Dorian searched the pockets of the corpses, "Woohoo, jackpot!  Another chunk of red lyrium.  I've got a crazy idea about how to open that door to the throne room.  Come on!  Let's go open and door and totally ruin Magister Mike's shit!"  
  
On Dorian's instruction Lydia returned to the main foyer where she was randomly able to open a door she had never bothered to attempt to open prior to finding red lyrium chunks.  The door open and Lydia soon found herself in Magister Mike's throne room.  Scott was there and looking hella old.  Magister Mike seemed pretty sorry with the way shit had turned out, because whatever shit he had done to save Scott, clearly had not worked out the way he'd expected.  As Lydia and Magister Mike had a back and forth about the ethics of sending someone one year into the future, the assassination of the Empress of France, and who or whatever the Elder One was, Leliana, still looking like a zombie, sneaked up and put a knife to Scott's throat.  
  
Magister Mike lost his shit, "No mang, don't hurt my boy.  Please I'll do anything!"  
  
Lydia was like, "Alright, just give us the amulet to do time machine magic and we'll peace out of this nightmare and kill you in the past which is really the present," but Leliana was like, "FUCK YOU YOU FUCKS!  YOU MADE ME LOOK LIKE AN OLD HAG!!!" and cut Scott's throat in half.  
  
Magister Mike lost whatever shit he had not lost two paragraphs earlier and went on the attack.  For a guy who was all angles and points and gauntlets, Magister Mike was kind of a chump.  Lydia and Cassandra wrecked house on him with swords while Sara and Leliana arrowed the shit out of him and Dorian did some wizard shit in the general direction of Magister Mike.  A couple times Magister Mike made neon green sky rips in his throne room, but neon green sky rips are pretty much weak sauce at this point.  Soon Magister Mike was totally dead and Dorian had the amulet he needed.  
  
"Now I just need an hour or two to figure this thing out and we'll be back in 941 or whatever," Dorian said, but Leliana was like, "Nope, you've got however long it takes me to shoot these arrows.  Demons are totally going to come and overrun this castle now."  
  
"Oi, we'll go and shoot some arrows at these demon shits yeah?  Last stand and all that bollocks, right?" Sara said.  
  
"No Echo Mic Sara, I can't let you do that!" Lydia said.  
  
"You do not have much choice," Cassandra said, "If you do not go back you cannot change the past so that this never happens."  
  
"I won't let you die meaninglessly.  Dorian do you damnedest!"  
  
As Dorian started to bellow, "TIIIIIIIIIIIME MACHIIIIIIIIIIINE MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGIC!" heaps of demons came busting into the throne room totally wrecking house of Sara and Cassandra and Leliana.  Lydia screamed, "NOOOOOOOOOO!" but soon found herself back in her present time with a not old Scott and a not dead Magister Mike standing before her.  
  
"Looks like you missed Magister Mike!" Dorian said.  
  
"Take 'im away boys!" Lydia shouted and two uniformed police officers arrested Magister Mike.  She dusted off her hands and was like, "And that's the end of that chapter!" but then a heap of soldiers came goosestepping into the room, so Lydia added, "Or not..."  The studio audience suddenly went apeshit as King Brodude and Queen Amidala appeared in the throne room.  
  
  
  
"Fiona!" King Brodude shouted, "Ya done goofed.  You let a foreign power totally take over Redcliffe and fuck up everything in Feldspar with your bullshit.  I want you and all your goddamn mages out of my country!"  
  
"But your majesty that's like a lot of people!" Fiona pleaded.  
  
"Uh...your grace," Lydia interjected, "Lydia Trevelyn, representing the Inquisition...we have need of these mages to close that The Breach out by Haven.  I'd like for you to entrust them to us so we can get that The Breach closed so demons don't destroy the entire world.  I mean once that's all done you can totally kick them out of Feldspar if you want, but I just want to get that shit closed for good."  
  
"I'd be amenable to that," said King Brodude, First of His Name.  
  
"Lydia be careful of giving them too much freedom," Cassandra said, "You saw first hand what mages can and will do if left to their own devices."  
  
"Wut?  You and I agreeing about something Lady Seeker yeah?" Sara boggled, "Seriously though boss, those gits made a right proper mess of things, keep 'em on a short leash yeah?"  
  
"Alright!  Fiona, get your fucking people together, you're prisoners of the Inquisition," Lydia said.  
  
"Prisoners?" Fiona quailed, "You cannot be serious."  
  
Lydia pounded her fist into the palm of her other hand and declared, "Oh I'm serious alright...as serious as whatever the fuck is wrong with Scott over there."  
  
 **TO BE CONTINUED!**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Director's Commentary: So I guess I got what I wanted after all. The Davinters are fucked over, the mages are my prisoner and I still have free reign to fight Templars, so everything worked out in the end. A quick question about Scott (who apparently is actually named Felix)...what the fuck is wrong with him? Every time he appeared he was like, "I'm dying or something," and then there was an exchange between Dorian and Zombie Leliana where he was like, "Sup with Felix," and she was like, "You'll see," and I saw he looked like he was dying but they never explained why and then she killed him. Also what happened with Connor? There was some dialogue when I went into a room where I could yell, "Connor! NO!" but then Dorian was just like, "He did the best he could," and there was no body or enemies to fight. It was weird.
> 
> Anyway I guess making mages my prisoner was for the best since everyone except for Solas was like, "approves greatly!" I have a feeling he's going to be slightly less civil the next time I talk with him in Haven.


	10. Dragon Age - S04E10 - Boner of the Year

"I cannot believe that you conscripted the mages! I specifically told you to make them ally themselves with the Inquisition! I didn't say anything about making prisoners out of them!" Leliana, bristling with anger, shouted, he voice echoing through the halls. She then turned her ire towards Cassandra, adding in an accusatory voice, "And you?! You went along with this?!"  
  
"You weren't there. The mages pulled a pretty huge boner what with allying themselves with the Davniter suckbags and pretty much getting themselves kicked out of Feldspar by King Brodude, first of His name.  A sure candidate for Boner of the Year if ever there was one!  Conscripting them was honestly the best way to get the mages to join our cause," Cassandra scowled.  
  
  
 _Other Famous All-Time Boners: When the mages allied themselves with Davinter suckbags and almost got kicked out of Feldspar..._  
  
"Pulled a huge boner...he he he," Dorian giggled to himself in the corner.  
  
"Seriously Leliana, you're kind of being a huge bitch right now. I totally got sent into the future by these goddamn Davinters that the mages decided to ally themselves with and you were there and you and you and you only you were a zombie and Cassandra had red stink lines, you were basically the same Dorian, though you had one more sleeve on your robe than you currently do. Anyway who cares how I got the mages, they're here now," Lydia replied.  
  
"I suppose that's true. Anyway the visions you saw were most troublesome...the assassination of Empress Celine Dion? This Elder One? Red lyrium growing out of vaginas? All of that sounds pretty bad," said Leliana, "I'm going to put my people on the case and look into it all, but our number one priority should be closing that The Breach. We need to discuss it in the War Room away from the prying eyes of that one mage over there and those nameless Chantry sisters. Come talk to us when you're ready, and by 'when you're ready,' I mean as soon as I finish talking to you here."  
  
"Jesus titty fucking Christ...I just got back from a zany time travel adventure that involved killing hella demons!" Lydia said, "Can't I even have a beer down at the bar? Sara got to have a beer and she didn't even have to deal with the oddity of time travel!"  
  
"I SAID AS SOON AS I FINISH TALKING TO YOU HERE!" Leilana shouted and stormed off into the war room.  
  
"Go have your beer," Cassandra said, "I'll talk to Leilana..."  
  
Lydia headed towards the door, but got cut off at the pass by Dorian.  "So you're going to head back to Davinter?" Lydia asked the Mustache Deluxe.  
  
"No ho ho ho..." Dorian chortled, "I'd like to stick around for awhile longer and at least see this The Breach up close if you don't mind."  
  
"That's cool I suppose," Lydia said, "Now if you'll excuse me I believe there's a keg of beer with my name on it."  
  
 **COMMERCIAL BREAK!**  
  
  
As Lydia approached Cassandra she heard the elf mage with the stupid hair shout impotently, "And just what are we supposed to do?  This place is not comfortable and there are no books!"  
  
"This isn't the Circle.  You're our prisoners, so deal with it..." Cassandra replied.  Exasperated the mage stormed off in a huff.  Cassandra sighed, "I don't know why they think I'm the one to yell at.  This is your doing."  
  
"Mine?  I had to think on my feet.  I did the best I could," Lydia replied.  
  
Cassandra smirked, "Oh mang, sorry it totally sounds like I'm blaming you doesn't it.  Honestly I don't disagree.  You did a good job.  You made a tough decision when it need to be made...and look where we are now.  Honestly I wish I could take credit for it."  
  
"You flatter me!" Lydia said.  
  
"I'm not!  This always happens!  People always take what I say the wrong way!"  
  
"HAHAHAHA!  You should see your face right now!"  
  
"Grrrr...I'm thinking less flattering things now."  
  
"HAHAHAHAHAHA!"  
  
Cassandra sighed, "Let's hope The Breach has your sense of humor.  Did you talk to Leliana about that yet?"  
  
"Nah.  It kind of seems like a point of no return and I kind of got burned by that shit last time.  I'm going to go clear out some of those random marks on my Hinterlands map.  You want in on that shit?" Lydia asked.  
  
"I guess.  Who else is coming?  Will Varric be there?" Cassandra asked.  
  
"Umm...I wasn't planning on bringing him.  Why?  You and him got something going on?" Lydia asked.  
  
"What?!  No!  He's a dwarf and a scoundrel!  Besides I think he loves that crossbow more than he loves anyone else...except maybe for the Champion of Kirkwall."  
  
"I dunno, he's not so bad, but you're totally right about the crossbow...anyway if you want in let me know otherwise I'll go talk to Blackwall."  
  
"What precisely are we going to be doing in the Hinterlands?"  
  
"Killing banditos.  Closing rifts.  Riding a moose.  That kinda shit."  
  
"Oh alright."  
  
 **COMMERCIAL BREAK!**  
  
  
"You know, you and I are cousins," Dorian said as Lydia pocketed another mysterious shard.  
  
"What?  Really?"  
  
"Oh it's a very, very, very distant thing, but somewhere in the Parvus family tree there are some Trevelyns," Dorian said.  
  
"So that's going to make flirting awkward," Lydia replied.  
  
"It was at least three ages ago so I think we're safe there," Dorian said, "The thing that will make the flirting awkward is the fact that neither of us enjoying the body parts the other possesses."  
  
"True."  
  
Cassandra sighed, "You are making me regret coming along.  I was under the impression that we would be battling banditos and making the Hinterlands safe for the small folk who live here.  Not this collecting creepy shards that are all like, 'wuh wuh wuh wuh' when you go near them."  
  
"I'm with Cassie!" Sara exclaimed, "Those shards are bollocks yeah?"  
  
"Alright alright!  We'll go fight some banditos.  They've got a fortress over that way we can probably wreck house it," Lydia said.  
  
The quartet trekked towards the bandito fortress, occasionally battling heaps of bears that randomly besieged them.  It was ridiculous how there was a constant stream of bears just trying to ruin Lydia's shit, but she, and her dudes were tough as shit.  Lydia had acquired a pretty rockin' bigass sword somewhere that totally owned house on bears and banditos and Davinters and pretty much anyone who was dumb enough to step to her.  When all was said and done there was a trail of dead bears leading from the Inquisition camp to the bandito fortress.  
  
Lydia also made it a point to pick up any of the "wuh wuh wuh" shards she saw on their way to the fortress, but was careful not to be seen by Sara while doing so, and thus devised a foolproof method to pick up the shards.  She would step on any shard she saw and then declare quite loudly, "Oh bother, my shoelace is untied!  I'd best tie it for I would hate to stumble upon an untied shoelace while battling banditos.  You guys sally forth!  I shall catch up with you after tying my shoe."  The others would shrug and carry on while Lydia would pocket the "wuh wuh wuh" shard with no one else any the wiser.  
  
Several "wuh wuh wuh" shards and a whole heap of bear corpses later Lydia & Friends found themselves inside a bandito stronghold.  These were no regular banditos these were heavy armor sledgehammer banditos and they meant business.  Fortunately Dorian was there to burninate them.  Oh how those heavy armor sledgehammer banditos ran around and screamed as they slowly burned to death!  Lydia was glad that they were dying, but found the entire chasing a burning dude around a bandito stronghold kind of tiresome.  She'd much rather have had the heavy armor sledgehammer banditos stand and fight and die right quick than run around and die slow.  She'd have to think about benching him for one of the other mages who didn't cause foemen to run around all over the place, much as it pained her to do so.  
  
"Bloody 'ell, what's this yeah?" Sara exclaimed as she pulled a gleaming suit of shiny red chainmail out of a dead bandito's ditty bag and checked the tag, "Masterwork Vanguard Armor?  This shite is bloody good and probably looks a lot more fetching than that rubbish you're wearing now Lydia.  Go on and put it on yeah?  Don't worry about showing your bum, Dorian fancies the gents!"  
  
Lydia slipped out of her regular type low level hero armor and into the gleaming suit of hero armor.  "Holy shit I totally look like a hero now!  Dudes we gotta get back to Haven...I've got a The Breach to close!"  
  
  
 _THIS!!!! But a lady!_  
  
 **TO BE CONTINUED!**  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Director's Commentary: I legit don't know if I should go in the war room and do the closing a Breach quest yet.  It seems like another point of no return, and I've got hella quests in my quest journal for Hinterlands still, to say nothing of the other zones I had to go into once for some plot and haven't ever gone back to yet...Storm Coast I'm looking at you.  The other reason I rocked out on non-plot was I wanted to test out Dorian in a non-controlled setting.  See how he functions in the wild.  I discovered that while I like Dorian's mustache, I don't like that he causes every enemy to go into a panic and run away.  It makes wrecking house on foes all the more difficult, so I think he's going to get benched in favor of Solas or Vivian who both basically cause enemies to not move.


	11. Dragon Age - S04E11 - The Apostates of Witchwood

  
  
Lydia sat in Monk's Cafe sipping her coffee listening to Solas talk about a recent failed romantic conquest.  "So I say to her, 'What I would like to know is, how does a person who has nothing to do with the Big Salad claim responsibility for that salad and accept the thank-you under false pretenses?'"  There was some chuckling from the studio audience, but the chuckling soon grew to a crescendo of wild applause.  Lydia looked up to notice that Cullen and slid into the Cafe like some sort of hipster doofus in his weird fur coat and zany hair.  
  
Cullen sat down in the booth next to Solas, across from Lydia and took some food off her place.  Lydia shrugged at him as he started in on his spiel, "Listen Lydia, I was talking to my friend Bob Sacamano, you know, from out in the Hinterlands...anyway Bob tells me that they're still having a problem with some crazy mages out in the Witchwoods and he knows that I know you and wanted you to go in there and maybe chop up some apostates and make things safer for the Hinterlanders."  
  
"Yeah I guess we can do that.  Come on Solas, it will get your mind off elven ladies who accept thanks for things they had no part in," Lydia said.  
  
"You going to finish this Reuben?" Cullen asked, eyeing the half-eaten sandwich on Lydia's plate and licking his chops.  
  
"No, go ahead..." Lydia sighed.  Cullen grabbed the sandwich and went to town on it as Lydia and Solas stood and headed out of the Cafe.  "Tamhks Lydiuff..." Cullen mumble with a mouth all full of corned beef and sauerkraut.  Russian dressing dribbled down his chin.  Lydia wondered if she had looked so gross when she'd been eating the sandwich.  If she did she was thankful that only Solas had been there to see her eat.  She would have died of embarrassment if Josephine or Sara had been there...or Cassandra and seen her with corned beef and sauerkraut popping out of her face.  
  
"So Solas, you want to come with me and kill some...uhhh...mages...you know what?  Never mind.  I'll ask Vivian instead."  
  
 **COMMERCIAL BREAK!**  
  
  
Lydia and her Lovely Ladies crushinated the last of the apostates standing before some sort of magic barrier deep in the Witchwoods.  There were Superman Fortress of Solitude crystals all over the place and Lydia had no idea what their deal was, but some sort of smoke was coming out of them.  Maybe they were ice.  Who knows?  Lydia looked at Vivian and was like, "Yo Viv...magic the shit out of that barrier so we can finish off these goddamn apostates once and for all!"  
  
"I'd like to, I really would, but this barrier is fire...my magic is lighting.  You need someone who can cast ice magic on this," Vivian replied.  
  
"Fuck..." Lydia muttered, "Solas is the only one who can do ice magic.  He's not going to be stoked about opening this barrier up to kill some dudes who just want to be free."  
  
"Probably not.  Well, I guess I'll head back to camp," Vivian said, "I'll send Mister Solas along to meet you here."  
  
Vivian and her really cool hat disappeared behind a giant Superman Fortress of Solitude crystal and Lydia sat down on a stone outcropping to wait for Solas to arrive.  Sara sat down next to her.  "Oi, you did the right thing with those mages right?  Lockin' 'em up like sneak-thieves and all," she said.  
  
"You don't like mages then?" Lydia asked.  
  
"No it's not like that.  I don't have a problem with mages if they're just sitting on their hands or walking around like regular people type people.  It's magic I have a problem with yeah?  Magic is scary as shit," Sara said.  
  
"I think you're right."  
  
At that moment Solas came strolling up the barrier.  "Hey guys how's it going?" he asked most politely, "Vivian said you needed my help with something, but wasn't particularly specific."  
  
"Everyone be cool," Lydia whispered to Sara and Cassandra, "Oh hey Solas!  Yeah, we need to get past this barrier and get some sort of Royal Elfroot for the alchemist back at the Crossroads...she's a right proper elf that I am trying to help get a leg up...you know to make up for my ancestors' shitty treatment of elves.  I know it's not a lot, but I figure it's a start right?"  
  
Solas' face lit up, "Oh why didn't she tell me that, I would have come a lot faster.  I'll have that barrier open in a jiffy!  ICE2!!!!"  Beams of ice shot out of Solas' fists and the barrier of fire disappeared in a hiss of steam.  As the steam dissipated the apostates screamed some stuff about, "You'll never take us alive coppers!" and then started magicking the shit out of everything.  Lydia, Sara, and Cassandra started good old fashion non-magical combating the shit out of the mages, but Solas was like, "Oh no!  What have I done?"  
  
It didn't really matter though because soon all the enemy forces were dead.  Cassandra was all like, "Their deaths will be a boon for the people of the Crossroads," and Lydia hoped Solas hadn't heard.  "Dude I'm sorry, we really did just need to get that Royal Elfroot.  I didn't really want to fight these guys.  You can't deny that they attacked us first.  Here, chin up mang, you can have this purple staff that Sara just found."  
  
"Just found?!  Where?!" Solas demanded.  
  
"Um...on one of the corpses from the heap of mages we just killed.  Where do you think she found it?" Lydia replied.  
  
"I don't want it!" Solas shouted.  
  
"Fine, I'll give it to Vivian then when we go back to camp!" Lydia replied, "It will match her really cool hat better anyway!"  
  
"FINE!" Solas said and the stomped off in a huff.  
  
 **COMMERCIAL BREAK!**  
 ****  
  
"I can't believe he got all moody about killing guys who were shooting wizard shit at us!" Lydia said as she and her Lovely Ladies made their way through the Hinterlands toward some sort of neon green sky rip.  "It's not like we were going out of our way to kill some dudes...we'll we were, but he didn't know that.  Anyway, thanks for being cool Vivian."  
  
"You are most welcome, and thank you for this wizard stick.  I cannot believe that Solas would not take it.  It is fairly stylish and powerful as fuck to boot!" Vivian said.  
  
"Yeah he's kind of a dope," Lydia said, "But what can you do?  Hey look it's demons!  You ready girls?"  
  
The girls were all like "YEAH!" and then the credits rolled while some sort of blasting rock anthem played still images of Lydia, Sara, Vivian, and Cassandra wrecking house on demons and closing a neon green sky rip were shown with Executive Producer Some Person overlaid atop them.  
  
 **END CREDITS!  
**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Director's Commentary: Thanks to someone for the heads up on Apostates in the Witchwood disappearing once I go and close the The Breach once and for all, I went and took care of them exactly like I said I did, complete with getting to their base and not being able to get past a barrier because Vivian is basically a Pikachu.  Other than that?  Picked up some more shards, closed a couple rifts, crafted some weapons and armor.  It's weird to me how I play for the same amount of time that I always have played these games, but how it seems like I didn't really do anything, which is why I think this time around I'm getting dangerously close to fan fiction territory...


	12. Dragon Age - S04E12 - Slash Fiction

"I heard about your little time travel adventure and/or misadventure from Sparkler yesterday," Varric said, "Cooter full of red lyrium...bad way to go...bad, bad way to go."  
  
Lydia sipped her coffee and stared at the dwarven mountebank.  Why did everyone feel the need to harangue her about stupid side quests first thing in the morning before she'd even had a chance to change out of her grey flannel pajamas?  "I'm sorry but who is Sparkler again?  Is that that Andy guy you hate?  Leliana?  The Hero of Feldspar's dog?  I really can't keep all your nicknames straight."  
  
"It's Dorian, duh..."  
  
"Sparkler?  Really?" Lydia did a spit take, spewing coffee all over the goddamn place, and then asked in disbelief, "A guy with a mustache that prominent and 'Sparkler' is the best you could come up with?  Varric I think you might be losing your touch."  
  
"Well, what would call him?" said Varric sounding more than a little insulted.  
  
"Oh I dunno...maybe Rollie."  
  
Varric scoffed, "Rollie?"  
  
"Yeah like Rollie Fingers!  Duh..."  
  
  
 _A Mustache Deluxe_  
  
"Oh that is better!  What else you got Boss?"  
  
"Snidley Whiplash?"  
  
  
  
"Oh man!  You're good at this!" Varric said, "Anyway, like I said, old Rollie was telling me about your zany time travel misadventures and I heard all about the red lyrium.  A cooter full of red lyrium's a shitty way to go...a real shitty way.  I mean my brother and Meredith both went batshit insane just carrying a small amount of it around with them.  Can you imagine how bad it would fuck you up to have a vagina full of it?  Anyway I put my boyz with a z on it and they found some heaps of the stuff growing out there in the wilds.  I think it would be in everyone's best interest if we went out there and busted that shit up.  You wouldn't want that in Ruffles' vagina?  Or Buttercup's?  Your tongue maybe, but certainly not red lyrium."  
  
Lydia stared at the dwarf dumbfounded.  
  
"Don't look so surprised, Sara told me about your diary," Varric said nonchalantly, "She's a talker that one.  How she's still part of a secret network of pranksters cum assassins that has evaded capture for decades is beyond me, but that's not really the point.  The point is, red lyrium is some of the worst shit and we gotta stop it Boss!"  
  
Lydia sighed, "Alright, get Bianca and meet me by the front gates in an hour.  We'll go punch red lyrium."  
  
Varric stood and did a fist pump and said "YEEEEEEES!"  
  
 **COMMERCIAL BREAK!**  
  
  
Several nugs scurried by as Lydia and Co. trekked up a hill.  "Varric, you're sure there's Red Lyrium up this way?" Lydia asked, "These nugs look pretty healthy," but before Varric could reply some banditos appeared from behind a rock and bellowed a vile oath in Dwarven, "Sodding sodders soddy sod sodded!"  
  
FIGHT IT OUT!!!  
  
Lydia started to do a big swing with her sweetass giant sword making huge arcs as she cleaved the shit out of fuckers that Dorian had already set ablaze.  Some of the dwarven banditos tried to make a break for it and run away, but Sara and Varric arrowed the fuck out of them.  The bodies looked like charred pork-a-pines when all was said and done.  Varric glanced at the bits of weapons and armor that remained with the eye of a police procedural detective and declared, "This stuff is all Encarta made...these guys must be lyrium smugglers.  Maybe they're smuggling red lyrium.  We should investigate!  It would be a shame if Ruffles' vagina got all crystallized and rendered useless..."   
  
Sara snickered, "I know right?"  
  
"Oh alright!" Lydia exclaimed, "We'll go into this goddamn cave or dungeon or Deep Roads or whatever and stop the Red Lyrium smugglers!"  
  
The posse entered the cave or dungeons or Deep Roads or whatever it became clear it was pretty much Deep Roads Lite.  "Yo Varric what's the deal with this place?" Lydia asked.  Varric had no idea though and was like, "Let's just find some sort of crime boss and put a stop to this crime and then go scout out the other heaps of red lyrium and bustigate 'em."  
  
The crew crept through the Deep Roads Lite fighting Encarta dirtbags and looting ancient dwarven treasures that were hidden in pots.  Suddenly Lydia saw something very disgusting that she had never seen before.  It, according to Varric, was a goddamn darkspawn!  "Ew!  It's repulsive!" Lydia shouted as the darkspawn slavered all over the place and was like, "BWAHHHHHH!"  
  
"Guys! It's pretty much time to FIGHT IT OUT!!" Lydia shouted and rushed forward to slash kill the shit out of the repulsive darkspawn leering at her.  Sara and Varric laid down some heavy arrow shooting and Dorian encased dudes in an inferno so they were screaming darkspawns running around like maniacs.  Soon the darkspawns were all dead.  Lydia was struck by a sudden eager to write a report about the darkspawns she had just slash killed and took her Two Kittens Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper out of her fish shaped pocketbook and jotted down some notes about not-orcs.  They would be useful at a later date.  
  
With her notes on not-orcs complete Lydia and friends headed deeper into the Deep Roads Lite.  Suddenly darkspawn alphas appeared with popped collars and antiquated ideas about women.  Lydia was not having it and set to work slash killing the shit out of them, but additionally darkspawns were spawning out of a hole in the wall.  They needed to do something and they needed to do it quick.  Dorian did that thing like one of those Lego games where you press X and random chunks fly together to build some sort of thing, and using random boards he built a wall to block darkspawns from getting through the hole in the wall.  
  
Lydia slash killed the alpha and once more took out her Lisa Frank Two Kittens Trapper Keeper to jot down notes on darkspawn alphas.  Mostly her notes consisted of drawings and the phrase "total douchelords" but she figured later on it would be helpful in researching better ways to handle them.  
  
 **COMMERCIAL BREAK!  
**  
  
It felt like they'd been in the Deep Roads Lite forever, but maybe only 30 or 40 minutes, and they still hadn't found any more smugglers or the dreaded red lyrium.  It was getting ridiculous.  "Yo Varric, I think this entire thing is kind of a bust.  Let's go back to Haven.  I want to sell some of this bullshit loot and I dunno, maybe craft this darkspawn shield we found plans for.  I think Cassie might like it."  
  
"Fancy her right?  It's the accent yeah?  It got me too it did," Sara interjected, "You're barking up the wrong tree with that one though...she's pretty insistent that she only fancies the lads.  I dunno though, maybe she was just being nice to me.  Didn't want to come out and say something like 'Oi you knife ears are too bony yeah?'  Maybe you'll have better luck with her."  
  
"Buttercup do I even want to ask?" Varric smirked.  
  
"Right!  So I was in the bar and Cassie comes strollin' in lookin' all buff and tuff and I'm there just having a pint and I figure it wouldn't be so bad to have a tumble with Cass...so I stroll up and am like 'Oi, Cass yeah?  Fancy a shag?' and she looks at me and in that voice of her's is like, 'Whut?  With you?  Ha!  I'm stictly dickly yeah?'  So I'm like, 'No shit?  You?  Huh?' and go back and finish my pint.  I know it's not as good as your stories Varric, but unlike yours mine's totally true yeah?"  
  
As Sara stopped talking about her failed lesbian conquests Lydia thought she heard the sound of people speaking Dwarven to each other, "Soddin' soddites.  Soddingly sodden sod sods!"  Lydia glanced at Varric who mouthed the words, "Encarta banditos."  Lydia smiled and made the international symbol for slash killing the shit out of banditos and then with a mighty bellow rushed forward and started slash fighting the shit out of the dwarven banditos.  There was fire all over the place and arrows and a lot of Lydia spinning in a circle chopping fools up like a goddamn blender...or maybe even a food processor.  Soon there were bodies everywhere.  
  
"Looks like we win!" Lydia shouted and then she looked around, "But where's the red lyrium?  There's just books in here.  Diaries and stuff."  
  
"Ohhh let's read 'em right?  I wonder if these short blokes wanted to snog Josie too yeah?"  
  
Lydia gave Sara a withering glance and read one of the diaries.  She looked up in terror, "Guys...they've been watching us.  For months."  
  
"These tiny dead blokes have seen me in my knickers?" Sara shouted in dismay and kicked the corpse of a dwarf bandito in the jollysack, "What if there are more of 'em out there somewhere?  Having a larf at my bony arse?"  
  
"I don't know Sara...I DON'T KNOW!"  
  
 **TO BE CONTINUED!**  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Director's Commentary: A trip down into the Deep Roads and then some crafting happened.  Last night I learned that I could take weapons and armor upgrades off and put them on hot new items.  I wish I had known that before selling random crap loot that had runes and shit attached to it.  Live and learn.  Anyway kind of unrelated to anything I have some kind of bullshit Dragon Age cellphone game that I play on the subway en route to work.  Basically you assemble a strike force and battle other dudes to try to get a better strike force.  Today it dawned on me that my team in that game pretty much consists of dudes I hated in the actual game.  There's Sten and Alister and Aveline and a Hamburger Helper Mage...and then a Halla which I don't actually hate, but 4 out of 5 isn't bad.


	13. Dragon Age - S04E13 - Network Mandated Clip-Show

In the morning Lydia would set out for the The Breach with a heap of conscripted mages to attempt to close the The Breach once and for all and save the world from neon green shit, but tonight she found herself in a bar seated across from the elf, Sara. "Listen right, if we all die tomorrow, I just wanted you to know I'm sorry I looked at your diary yeah? And if we get out of this alive, I'll stop taking the piss out of you about it right?"  
  
"Really?" Lydia asked doubtfully, "That means a lot Sara. Thank you."  
  
"'S nothing...besides, pretty much everyone knows now anyway right?" Sara replied, "Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that if you die, I'm going to miss you yeah?  Sure you're highborn, but you're not a 'milady.' Know whut I mean?"  
  
"Not really, no."  
  
"Take Josie...not that way, just for example, yeah?  She's a right proper lady yaknowwhutamean?  She wears a dress and slippers...lot's of ruffles and shite...right proper High Street Shoppes stuff yeah?  But you...in your boots and pants...you dress like people people right?  So now you know whut I mean about not being a 'milady?'" Sara said, but before Lydia had a chance to reply, the elf continued, "I've been thinkin' about it and we sure have had a lot of adventures together haven't we?  
  
"I suppose that's true."  
  
"You know what my favorite adventure was?  When we found that lost Mark Ruffalo yea?  Do you remember?  I remember it like it was just yesterday...because it was."  
  
 _Fade Out For a Flashback....._  
  
Lydia and her posse were tromping through the Hinterlands as was their wont, making their way from the Redcliffe farms to some kind of cabin that possibly had fantastical treasures in it, but in reality probably just had some kind of demons or Templars or some other bullshit that needed to get chopped to tiny little chunklettes.  Their maps were pretty good, and Lydia and her friends set off for the cabin, but as they jumped down into a river there were attacked by some fucking neon green sky tear bullshit.  It was too tall skinny dudes and wizrobes shooting ice blasts all over the goddamn place.  
  
Lydia swung around in a circle with a big ass sword, totally wrecking house on the goddamn tall skinny dudes that were creeping around in the river.  She was desperate to close the rift, but she was too dizzy from spinning in a circle and couldn't focus on where she need to point her hand to shoot neon green blasts out of it into the neon green sky tear, but eventually Lydia and company stood triumphant and the neon green sky tear was gone, thus allowing the party to carry on towards some sort of quest hand-in in a cabin in the woods.  
  
Their journey took the party through a disgustingly named valley.  Sounds of nebbish whining echoed through the valley and there in the valley they did find a lost and confused Mark Ruffalo.  He communicated that he lived at Redcliffe Farms and wanted to go back home, but did not know the way.  Lydia was all like, "Hey Mark Ruffalo, I'll help you get home buddy!"  
  
  
 _Mark Ruffalo_  
  
Lydia led Mark Ruffalo over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house and once there Mark Ruffalo communicated that he was super grateful for the assistance in getting back to his farm and that for the assist Lydia would be awarded Power or Influence or something.  Who can even remember when it comes to gifts from Mark Ruffalo?  
  
 **COMMERCIAL BREAK!  
**  
"First of all it was a druffalo, not Mark Ruffalo, and secondly it didn't really happen that way at all," Lydia said.  
  
"Sure it did!  At least that's how Varric tells it right?" Sara retorted.  
  
"But you were there...Varric wasn't.  Why would you believe his version over what you saw?"  
  
"Cuz he's written books right?"  At that moment, Varric entered the bar.  Sara spotted him and shouted, "Speak of Dragon...Oi Varric we were just talking about you!  We were talking about our favorite adventures, in case we all die tomorrow trying to close The Breach, but Lydia doesn't believe your sodding story about Mark Ruffalo."  
  
Varric sat down next to Lydia and ordered a ridiculously overpriced craft beer with a stupid name.  "Favorite adventures eh?  Would either of you ladies care to hear my favorite adventure?" he asked.  
  
"Not particularly," Lydia said.  
  
Sara clapped her hands in joy and shouted, "Of course!  I love your stories right?"  
  
"Well it all started last night when after hearing that there was a scout we could have recruited in the Hinterlands from the Ladies Bones and Rex we traveled to the Hinterlands to do precisely that, and by precisely that I mean attempt to recruit some scout in the Hinterlands."  
  
"Dude this literally just happened and all three of us were there...you don't need to tell us about it!" Lydia exclaimed, but it was too late...  
  
 _Fade Out For a Flashback....._  
  
The information turned out to be a bust.  Lydia did not doubt the validity of what she had been told, but she had apparently been too late, for the scout in question was nowhere to be found when she returned to the hilltop picnic site where she had discovered the scout making time some some sort of wizrobe.  Lydia decided that since she was already in the area it would behoove her to look into wrapping up some of the other tasks she'd been tasked with completing that were located nearby.  She decided that the best one to complete would be locating caches of apostate gear, because it could be big ass swords or other junk helpful in killing a The Breach, but the cache proved to be in a location inaccessible to her, so she went to some fort to tell a guy about his dead lady love.  
  
The fortress was loaded with idiots who thought that the neon green sky rips were things to worship regardless of the fact that they were pretty much barfing demons all over the goddamn place.  Lydia ignored the lady who taunted her about being the Herald of Andraste and showing what she was "made of" and went to find the dude with a dead lady love.  He was chilling like a villain out on a balcony.  "Have you seen my lady love?  She was about this tall, dark hair...huge titties," the guy said, "She should have been here by now.  She and I are supposed to do some cult shit together.  The Maker wouldn't make me do this shit alone would he?"  
  
Lydia sighed, "Dude, I've got some bad news."  
  
"What is it?  I can't imagine anything that would make me upset."  
  
"Your ladylove is dead.  I found this letter...and the tits?  They matched your description."  
  
"OH NOOOOOOOO!  WHAT WILL I DO WITHOUT MY LADYLOVE?!  WE WERE SUPPOSED TO DO THIS WEIRD CULT SHIT TOGETHER!  BOOHOOHOO!  BOOHOOHOO!" the guy sobbed uncontrollably.  
  
"Why not join the Inquisition and get some revenge on the assholes who killed your ladylove?" Lydia offered.  
  
"Oh man!  That's totally what I'll do!  Me and my mens will wreck house on everyone in the name of the Inquisition!" the guy shouted, then he and Lydia bumped fists, and that's how Lydia failed to get one agent, but found a suitable replacement nonetheless.  
  
 **COMMERCIAL BREAK!**  
  
Cassandra Pendergast strolled into the bar like a motherfucking boss, and upon seeing Varric called out, "Ah Varric there you are.  I have been looking all over for you.  I...uh...had several things...um...regarding the events of Kirkwall I wished to ask you about.  You know, just in case we all die tomorrow, I want my records of the event to be as accurate as possible."  
  
Sara leaned across the table and "whispered" to Lydia, "I think those two fancy each other."  
  
  
  
Lydia raised her eyebrow like The Rock.  "I don't really think that's what's going on here Sara," she whispered back.  
  
"I can see you are otherwise occupied, so I suppose I will speak with you later," Cassandra said and turned to head towards the door, but Varric was like, "No, come, have one drink with us and then I'll answer whatever questions you have."  
  
"Oh very well," said Cassandra and she turned and walked back towards the table.  Sara mouthed the word, "See," to Lydia as Cassandra sat down across from Varric and Lydia kicked Sara in the shin under the table and mouthed, "Behave."  
  
"I'll have seven boiler makers," Cassandra told the tavern wench and as the woman sauntered off she asked Lydia and the others, "What are you all talking about here anyway on the eve of either saving the world or dying terrible, terrible deaths?"  
  
"We were just talking about our favorite adventures yeah?" Sara replied, "So how 'bout it Cassie?  Any adventures stand out as particularly memorable?  That time Lydia and Dorian 'went into the future,' but really didn't even leave the room?  When we killed those heaps of bears right?  Picking up shards?"  
  
"Don't call me Cassie.  Those are all good adventure jams, but my favorite adventure was one that happened a little more recently than that.  Now please be aware that I am not as gifted a storyteller as our friend Varric here as I paint for you a picture.  The place is a fortress of fanatics in the Hinterlands, shortly after the Herald of Andraste recruited a particularly distraught fellow into joining the Inquisition after it had been discovered that his ladylove had been killed by banditos or Templars or demons or some shit..."  
  
"Oh my God.  Seriously Cassandra this happened like an hour ago.  You don't need to do thi..." but before Lydia could finish she was cut off by _Fade Out For a Flashback....._  
  
Lydia and her crewpack were out in the Hinterlands in some sort of fortress filled with weirdos who thought that the neon green sky tears were some sort of sign from the Maker, fit to be worshiped in spite of the fact that they were barfing neon green humanoids and disgusting demons out all over the goddamn place.  The leader of this particular assemblage of weirdos was a weird lady who might have been a mage.  Lydia could never tell unless they had a staff equipped.  The lead weirdo yelled some shit about Lydia not really being the Herald of Andraste until she proved it, but Lydia didn't give half a shit about that kind of shit.  She had a guy's life to ruin.  
  
With a man's life ruined, Lydia was all set to leave the fortress of weirdo cult peoples behind for good, but as she headed down from a balcony, a weird, green light caught her eye.  It was a goddamn neon green sky rip, right there in the courtyard of the weirdo cult's fortress.  "Dudes, we gotta do power moves on the neon green sky rip or there will be disgusting demons running roughshod all over these weirdo cultists.  Yeah, they're weird, but they're still people so we gotta do what we can do."  
  
Together with Varric, Sara and Cassandra, Lydia ran towards the neon green sky tear.  Already there was a mess of too talls and a couple neon green humanoids that she set to work slashfucking into oblivion.  The two warriors and two rogues fought as valiantly as Prince Valiant and since Sara was there they also totally repped Prince Valiant's haircut.  It was glorious!  The battle that is, though the haircut was pretty good too.  
  
  
 _And that's a pretty nice haircut!_  
  
Soon Lydia was like, "Fuck these demons!  It's time for a green hand beam!" and shot green beams out of her hand.  There was a craplosion of neon green and all the cultists were like, "Ho shit what the ef was that?!"  The lead cult lady was like, "Yo sorry I totes doubted you before.  You're legit the real deal.  This whole cult is at your disposal now.  So what do you want us to do yo?"  Lydia thought about it for awhile.  Maybe they could spy for her or spread the good word about the Inquisition, but that wasn't really why she joined this entire Old School Inquisition thing.  She did it to bring about a Warren G. Harden style return to normalcy for the people that Sara would have referred to as "people people."  
  
"How's about you and your folk go help the refugees," Lydia said, "You know, heal 'em if you can, keep 'em safe.  That kind of shit."  
  
"Sounds good Herald of Andraste!" said the head cultist.  
  
 _Fade In On Present Times..._  
  
Cassandra pounded her seventh boilermaker and declared, "And that's why I always bring and extra pair of smallclothes with me when I'm in the Free Marches!"  
  
"Cassandra I think you've had one or two boilermakers too many," Varric said, "You kind of got off on a tangent about someone named Jethann after you told us about Hawke...shit sorry...Lydia closing the rift.  C'mon I'll get you back to your tent outside."  
  
Cassandra stood on wobbly legs and together with Varric exited the tavern.  As the dwarf and the Seeker stumbled out together Sara raised her eyebrows at Lydia and was like, "See!  Whut did I tell ya right?  They are totally going back to Cassie's tent to shag!"  
  
  
  
"She's way too drunk and Varric's a gentleman," Lydia said.  
  
"Cassie?  Drunk?  Ha!  I've seen her drink Bull under the table.  She pounds boilermakers like they're bloody water!" Sara laughed, "Mark my words, they are shagging right this very moment!  Anyway, I should get back to wherever it is that I sleep since we've got a big day of closing Breaches ahead of us tomorrow.  You should probably go to bed soon too, unless of course you and Josie want to have a tumble together!"  
  
Lydia chugged the last of her brew and was like, "Seriously there's nothing going on with me an Josephine.  I'm sorry I wrote anything about it in my diary...and sorrier that you saw it."  
  
Sara stood up, "I'm just having a larf, don't take it so personal.  Anyway, I'm glad you and Josie aren't together.  You did a proper thing today when you sent those creepy cultist to help the people people.  I'm afraid if you started shagging Josie I'd have to start calling you milady and you'd stop caring about the people people.  Really though, go to bed, we've got some nasty shite to take care of tomorrow."  
  
Sara was right.  The morning would bring some nasty shit indeed.  Lydia hoped she lived through it.  
  
 **TO BE CONTINUED!!!  
**


	14. Dragon Age - S04E14 - The Season Finale

Lydia strolled towards the The Breach like a boss. The The Breach was all green and glowy and shit as if someone had somehow suspended a multitude of those Glo Worm things that every kid born in the 80s had in their bedroom up in the sky and those Glo Worms somehow caused neon green lightning and barfed out shitty demons.  
  
  
 _The Breach_  
  
Behind her the conscripted mages grumbled about how unfair it was that they were being punished for allowing Davinter suckbags to conquer a sizable chunk of Feldspar, but Solas very politely told them to shut the fuck up and get ready to slam the butts of their staves into the ground to give Lydia more power to fuck over the The Breach once and for all.  
  
Lydia put her hand up.  This was it.  The moment of truth.  Neon green beams, augmented by mages laying down some mad phat beats by slamming their staves into the ground shot forth from her hand.  The mages were going all out.  The syncopation was unreal.  Lydia felt the neon green beam explode from her hand.  Cassandra shouted, "Her power level?!  IT'S OVER 9000!!" as the neon green blast slammed into the The Breach.  There was sound and fury and then a sweetass explosion that knocked Lydia the fuck out.  
  
Behind her the mage drum circle was toppled by an aftershock, but slowly the stood and looked to the sky and for the first time in months it was completely and utterly free of neon green shit.  Lydia had succeeded.  The Breach?  It had been closed!  
  
 **\---**  
  
Lydia sat on a bench in Haven and watched as her fellow Inquisition dudes chugged copious amounts of booze and attempted to hook up for casual encounters that they would undoubtedly regret in the morning.  The Breach had been closed and they had all lived, and yet she couldn't help but feel somewhat empty.  After all the hardships she and her companions had endured, closing the The Breach seemed easy...almost far too easy.  Sara had opined that it had been harder to bring "Mark Ruffalo" back to farm than it had been to close the The Breach and Lydia couldn't honestly disagree.  
  
Lydia sipped casually from her 40 of Olde English and smiled at the revelers reveling below her.  Cassandra, 40 in hand, strolled up and sat down beside Lydia.  "You did it," she said, "You closed the The Breach.  Cheers."  
  
Lydia and Cassandra clinked 40 ounce bottles and drank deeply of the shoddy malt liquor contained within.  "I didn't do it alone you know," Lydia said as she wiped he mouth with the back of her non-glowing hand, "Everyone here helped.  I don't think I could have do it without you."  
  
"You're too kind," Cassandra said and then looked at Lydia's expression, "You feel it too don't you?"  
  
"Feel what?"  
  
"Feel like without a cause the Inquisition will kind of fall apart," Cassandra replied, "We have closed the The Breach, that is true, but there is still chaos reigning supreme across these lands.  Lost Mark Ruffalos to lead home, misplaced rings to return to their owners, but without some sort of big plot chunk to propel us forward you are worried that the Inquisition will lack direction and focus."  
  
"I suppose you are right Cassan..." but before Lydia could finish saying Cassandra's name, Cullen came running out of somewhere and was like, "SHIT MANG!!!! IT'S AN ARMY OF INVADERS APPROACHING GIVING US THE PLOT CHUNK WE NEED TO CONTINUE TO MOTIVATE OUR INQUISITION!!!  HURRY GET YOUR WEAPONS WE GOTTA FIGHT THIS SHIT OUT DUDES!!!!"  
  
"Cullen!  Who are they?  What banner do they fly?" Cassandra asked trying to calm the berserk former Templar.  
  
"NONE!  THEY HAVE NO GODDAMN BANNERS!!!" Cullen shouted in a frenzy, "WE GOTTA CLOSE THESE GODDAMN GATES!!!!  JEZUUUUUS!!!"  
  
  
  
As Cullen tried to close the gates, a Final Fantasy pretty boy hero with a stupid hat that made him look like Dumbo strolled up to the gate.  "Oh hello, that guy up there is the Elder One and he's pretty much pissed at the Herald of Andraste and coming to kill her," the pretty boy with the stupid hat said, conveniently dumping plot on everyone present, "His army?  Yeah those are Templars with Red Lyrium in their vaginas or buttholes or whatever.  Anyway they are totally on the warpath.  You might want to get ready to fight it out."  
  
"JEEEEEEZUS!" Cullen screamed, "THEIR LEADER IS SAMSON!!!  THAT GUY IS A FUCK AND A HALF!!!  LYDIA!!! I GONNA GO CALL MY CREW, YOU GO CALL YOUR CREW AND WE CAN RENDEZVOUS AT THE BAR AROUND TWO!"  
  
Lydia nodded.  
  
 **COMMERCIAL BREAK!**  
  
Lydia, Sara, Cassandra, and Vivian fought off a horde of red lyrium ruined Templars while nameless Inquisition grunts manned a trebuchet or catapult or some other sort of siege engine.  The defenders shouted to her, "Hold 'em off just a little longer!  We've almost got this thing in position!"  
  
Lydia swung around like a top, dealing axe death to all who got in her way.  Body chunks flew all over the goddamn place.  It was disgusting.  There was an explosion in the distance as the trebuchet fired an exploding unit into a mountain, sending an avalanche of ownage down upon the horde of demons and Red Lyrium Templar douchelords.  The nameless Inquisition forces cheered but soon their cheers were replaced with wailing.  "Oh no dudes!  Some assfucks have overrun the other trebuchet.  We need to get them off it so we can send another explosion of awesomeness into the mountain and wipe the rest of these fuckbags out!"  
  
"We'll do it!" Lydia shouted and then turning to her companions was like, "C'mon dudes!  We've got some fuckbags to wreck house on!"  
  
The crew rushed to the other trebuchet and wrecked house on jerkoff Red Lyrium brand Templars.  Lydia thought they looked kind of like Hamburger Helper wizards with glass chunks inserted into them for addition grossness.  She hated them and chopped the shit out of them with his sweet Qunari style axe.  It was a pretty boss axe.  It cut gross fiends apart pretty well and did not look half as stupid as her last big ass sword did.  Hanzo's Razor or whatever?  That shit look more like a child's Little League championship trophy than an awesome sword.  
  
As Lydia, Cassandra and Vivian wrecked house on jerkoffs, Sara turned a crank.  She hummed the melody to "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" as she worked, occasionally pausing to shoot arrows at jerkoffs who had sneaked past her defenders.    
  
"Hurry up with that crank!" Cassandra shouted at her.  
  
"Oi!  I'm cranking as fast as I can yeah?  You think you can do better when all these tossers keep coming up to me like 'RWOAR!!!' I'd like to see you try right?" Sara shouted back and kept cranking.  Suddenly there was a _woosh_ and the trebuchet fired an explosion chunk.  Sara did a fist pump and shouted, "I AM BLOODY BRILLIANT!!" as the mountain exploded and crushinated more dudes beneath snow, but her joy was short lived, because a goddamn dragon suddenly appeared and blew up the trebuchet with a blast of dragon barf.  
  
"SHIT BALLS FUCK SHIT TOSSER BLOODY FUCK!" Sara shouted.  
  
"Everyone get outta here!  We gotta get to the gates!" Lydia shouted.  
  
Lydia and her team ran to the gates, but once inside it was obvious that their position was hopeless.  "We gotta get to the Chantry!" Cassandra shouted, but Sara was like, "WHAT ABOUT THE HUMANOIDS?!  YOU GOTTA SAVE THE HUMANOIDS!"  
  
"Oh alright!  Let's save the humanoids!" Lydia said.  She would soon rue the day she ever uttered those words...  
  
 **COMMERCIAL BREAK!**  
  
"JESUS TITTYFUCKIN' CHRIST! WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG?!" Cullen shouted as Lydia, Sara, Cassandra and Vivian ran into the Chantry.  
  
"Just...saving...the humanoids," Lydia gasped, "So many...humanoids...that needed saving...jumped in a fire...pulled...people out of rubble...so...many...humanoids..."  
  
"SAVING THE HUMANOIDS?!" Cullen bellowed, "FACK!!!  THEY'RE GONNA DIE IN HERE ANYWAY!  WE'RE TRAPPED AND THEY'VE GOT A GODDAMN DRAGON!?!"  
  
The pretty boy with the stupid fucking hat, was like, "Hello?  This dying priest has something to say about a secret tunnel, but it's hard for him to talk."  
  
The dying priest was all like, "Kaff kaff...I'm dying yo...but there's a secret tunnel that will take you out of Haven.  I totally forgot about that shit until just now.  It must be divine intervention or some shit.  It will be risky business, but we should be able to make it out if someone can slow that...kaff kaff...fucking dragon down a bit yo."  
  
Lydia sighed, "I guess we're going to go back out and fight a goddamn dragon.  You ladies ready?"  Her ladies nodded.  "Cullen, get these people out of here alright?  Hopefully you and I can still get our crews and rendezvous at the bar around two as per your earlier request.  Good luck mang."  
  
"Good luck to you too mang.  Smell ya later," Cullen said in a brief moment of not being berserk and then it was back, "OKAY YOU FUCKLERS THIS WEIRD DUDE WITH A STUPID HAT AND THIS DYING PRIEST SAY WE GOTTA GO OUT SOME FUCKING TUNNEL SO LET'S GET IT TOGETHER YO!!!"  
  
Lydia turned and headed back outside.  There were heaps of Red Lyrium brand Templars all over the goddamn place that needed their houses wrecked.  Lydia was happy to oblige and chopfucked the shit out of them with her Qunari axe.  There was blood all over the place.  It was disgusting.  She hoped she couldn't catch red lyrium cooter by being sprayed with red lyrium infected blood.  Having a vagina full of red lyrium would pretty much be a fate worse than death, though she supposed it wouldn't matter anyway since she'd probably die trying to stop a dragon from eating humanoids going out the back door with Cullen.  
  
"Lydia, there's a goddamn trebuchet over that way," Cassandra said, "If we could shoot it into a dragon maybe we could win the fight and then escape."  
  
"Would that even work?" Lydia asked, "You never hear about dragons getting killed by a trebuchet.  It's always some hero standing against a dragon in single combat."  
  
"It's pretty much how Odette Corvette killed the Archdemon during the last Blight," the Seeker replied as she casually stabbed a Templer in the eyeball, "I mean she used a balista, but the concept's the same.  Siege engines wreck house on dragons to the max.  Besides if the trebuchet fails we can still do your one on one b-ball thing..."  
  
Lydia started cranking that crank as wave upon wave of shitty Red Lyrium brand Templar jumped over a wall and tried to ruin her shit, but Cassandra was basically a beast and smashed the shit out of all of 'em while Sara and Vivian put those fools on blast, that being said it was slow going, cranking that crank, because for as good as her posse was, there were still jerkoffs who were able to get past the unstoppable force that was Cassandra.  Lydia put them in their place, but their interruption was not really all that helpful and threw her off her cranking game.  
  
Suddenly a huge fucking guy totally ruined by Red Lyrium coming out of his wherever appeared on the scene and growled menacingly.  It was on like Donkey Kong!  "FUCK CRANKIN' THAT!!!" Lydia shouted, "IT'S TIME TO WRECK HOUSE ON A BOSS LIKE A BOSS LADIES!!!  
  
FIGHT IT OUT!!!  The fight could only be described as epic ownage.  So many Red Lyrium brand Templars got their shit totally fucked over by the combined might of four lovely ladies with various weapons and magical wizard shit capabilities.  But before Lydia could fire the trebuchet once and for all a dragon showed up and blew everything up.  It was sucks and a half.  There was fire all over the place and Lydia couldn't see any of her friends.  Suddenly some bullshit guy who looked like Mel Gibson in The Man Without a Face only a goddamn giant showed up.  
  
  
 _This guy._  
  
"Hey mang I'm Coprophilia and you done goofed!" he mumbled, "That mark in your hand was supposed to be a weapon of mass destruction or some shit so I could be a god and bring back the good, old, awesome Davinter Empire, but you totally fucked it up.  Now bow before Coprophilia."  
  
"Fuck you mang!  I'll never bow to you!" Lydia shouted definitely.  
  
Coprophilia juggled some glowing orb thing and moved towards Lydia, "I'm taking that mark back yo!"  He tried to do some wizard shit but was totally disappointed, "GAAAAA!!! You totally ruined that mark.  FUCK!  Well I guess I can kill you and do my plan another way!"  
  
Lydia was not having it and was all like, "NOT TODAY DOUCHLORD!" and grabbed a sword to chop a rope and fire a trebuchet into a mountain which begat an avalanche which she then slid down as Jane's Addiction played.  
  
   
  
 **COMMERCIAL BREAK!**  
  
"Fuck..." Lydia moaned as she slowly stood.  Her ribs were pretty much a McRib sandwich and her drawers were pretty much soaked.  "Fuck..." she moaned again as she took a step forward.  "I gotta find the others," she thought and took another step.  She was in some sort of underground passage and she made her way through it carefully, stopping only once to battle a pair of neon green humanoids who had apparently been separated from Coprophilia's army.  Out of the underground passage she went, exiting onto the side of a mountain.  The wind and wolves howled and there were snow heaps all over the goddamn place.  
  
"I gotta find the others," she thought and tromped down the mountain.  Her feet were cold and her jaw chattered.  A neon green beam was pretty consistently coming out of her hands.  Never before had she felt so completely an utterly alone.  She found the remnants of a camp site that seemed to be days old.  The ashes were cold, but she found a half eaten BLT that she chowed down on before setting off again.  
  
"I gotta find the others," she thought as somewhere in the distance the wolves howled.  How long had they been tracking her?  How long would it be until they caught her?  Would it hurt to be eaten by a wolf?  She took another step and collapsed in the snow, never noticing the Inquisition heroes running towards her.  
  
 _Fade Out...Fade In..._  
  
"Listen, you stupid bitch it's never going to work!" Cullen shouted.  
  
"FACK YOU!!!" Cassandra shouted back.  
  
"Guys for reals we need to come up with a plan..." Josephine interjected.  
  
Lydia sat up gingerly in her cot and turned to see the French nun, Mother Gazelle, sitting next to her, "They've been fighting for hours.  It's not going to solve anything."  
  
Mother Gazelle was like, "They fight because they lack a leader.  But you can be that leader because you had a miracle happen to you."  
  
"What?  No I didn't.  I didn't die.  I just slid down a mountain while Jane's Addiction played," Lydia replied.  
  
"But that doesn't really matter.  The people saw you die and saw you live again.  Sometimes people need hope or some shit...to overcome adversity and whatnot."  
  
"But that's stupid.  What can hope do against Coprophilia?  He's a real live living thing that can choke me and throw me around and also he has a dragon.  What chance does hope stand against a dragon?" Lydia said and stood up.  Behind her the French nun started singing the theme song to Dragon Age Inquisition which apparently is not an instrumental as Lydia had earlier thought.  Other people started joining in and there were farmers clasping hands in prayer and looking at Lydia.  The entire thing made her totally uncomfortable so she was so happy when Solas sidled up next to her and was like, "A word."  
  
She followed Solas away from the creepy church revival thing that had erupted in the camp up to his Elf Outpost.  The Elf Outpost consisted of little more than a hill of snow with some PVC pipes assembled into some sort of modern art.  Solas lit the pipes on fire and was like, "That dude had an orb right?  Said it was Davinter?  It wasn't.  It was Elfmake."  
  
"What was it and what do you know about it?"  
  
"It was called a Folk Eye.  I admittedly do not know a whole hell of a lot about except that I've seen them in the Fade from time to time and they can be used to channel really old school magic," Solas said.  
  
"That sounds pretty bad.  I mean if he used it and people knew what it was it would probably cause some shit with the Elves wouldn't it?"  
  
"The elves have historically been a pretty easy scapegoat when shit goes south, yes.  I fear such a thing would upset or alliance and sow chaos and discord in its place."  
  
Lydia declared, "Dude, we can't let that happen, but what can we do?"  
  
There was a sweetass montage of people and rhinoceroses tromping through hill and dale and Lydia climbing up a mountain of snow while Solas delivered the most excellent voice-over in the history of all of Thedas, "By attacking the Inquisition, Coprophilia has changed it. Changed you. Scout to the north. Be their guide. There is a place that waits for a force to hold it.  There is a place where the Inquisition can build… grow…Skyhold."  
  
And there it was.  The most beautiful Dream Castle that Lydia had ever seen!  
  
  
 _Skyhold_  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Director's Commentary: Fuck saving the humanoids.  That was literally the worst two hours of video game trial an error ever in the history of me playing video games, at least until someone told me, "Just use a person with a bow or a mage to shoot all the enemy forces before you get close to the 'save a person' trigger spot."  That made it super easy.  The random "here comes wave after wave of lyrium junkies while you turn a crank," was kind of annoying and I very nearly ran out of potions but luckily some people here told me about regeneration potions, so I was packing those as well and survived to the end.  I'm pretty stoked to get it going in Skyhold the next time I play since it seems like good chunks.


End file.
